If you would this morning, please take your copy of the Bible and turn with me to the book of Numbers, please. Numbers chapter one. I want to read a few verses here. Numbers may be a book you begin to read, and it's lists upon lists of names. And I want to come to this book this morning. I hope you've been able to get notes. Keep your eye on those notes. Those notes you have are not notes for the sermon this morning, just to clarify that. Those are notes on the book of Numbers. I'm not Following strictly those notes that are in front of you, take them home, we will make reference to them, but that's just, that's what I do for my devotions. I like to work down through chapters, try to name them and get the structure of the book, and that's just there. I hope that'll help you with this book in Scripture. Moses obviously was the man inspired by God to write this book. That's why we're coming to it this morning. This is the next stage in the life of Moses. So chapter one and the verse one, let's read this together. And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year, after they were coming out of the land of Egypt, saying, Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families by the house of their fathers. with the number of their names every meal by their poles. From 20 years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel, thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies. So just let me pause there, verse three. What you have is now the numbering of Israel. This is very important. In the past, David tried to number Israel and brought a plague upon the people. That was because, I think, because of pride. That was the issue, that was the motivation, therefore it was wrong. But here you have God requiring the people to be numbered because there's going to be a big event that happens and they'll have to be numbered again. And those two numbers are very important. But for now, take note of verse three, because it says, those who are 20 years old and upward. So you had to be above 20. You also had to be able to go forth to war in Israel. So those who were unwell would not have been numbered here. This is the numbering of an army. So keep that in mind. Verse four. And with you there shall be a man of every tribe, every one head of the house of his fathers. So here come the numbers, hence the name, numbers, the book. Verse five. And these are the names of the men that shall stand with you of the tribe of Reuben, Eleazar, the son of Shadur. of Simeon, sorry that's not numbering yet, numbering is coming later on, sorry, in this chapter. This is now the man who will help with the counting in each tribe. Verse 6, of Simeon, Shelu Me'il, the son of Zeriah Shaddaiah, of Judah, Neshon, the son of Amimadad. of Issachar, Nethaniel, the son of Zuer, of Zebulun, Eliab, the son of Helam, of the children of Joseph, of Ephraim, Elshamah, the son of Amimehud, of Manasseh, Gimilel, the son of Padiazer, of Benjamin, Abiodan, the son of Gideoni, of Dan, Ahasuer, the son of Am-Maiashadai, of Asher, Peel-Gil, the son of Ochrin, of Gad, Eli-Sefa, the son of Juil. Of Naphtali, Ahira, the son of Inan. These were the renowned of the congregation, princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel. And Moses and Aaron took these men, which are expressed by their name, And they assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month, and they declared their pedigrees after their families by the house of their fathers, according to the number of the names from 20 years old and upward by their poles. As the Lord commanded Moses, so he numbered them in the wilderness of Sinai. Verse 20, now the numbering begins. And the children of Reuben, Israel's eldest son, by their generations, after their families, by the house of their fathers, according to the number of the names of their poles, every male from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war, those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of Ribbon, were forty and six thousand and five hundred. Big numbers here. Verse 22, of the children of Simeon, at the end of verse 23, it says, 50 and 9,300. Verse 24, Gad, we are told at the end of verse 25, there were 40 and 5,650. Verse 26 is Judah, and verse 27 at the end, it tells us there were three score, and 14,600. Verse 28 is Issachar, end of verse 29, 50 and 4,400. And then we have verse 30 is Zebulun, verse 32 is Joseph, verse 34 Manasseh, 36 Benjamin, 38 Dan, 48 Asher, 42 And then we come to verse 46. I just scanned through this for the sake of time this morning. Verse 46, even all they that were numbered were 600,000 and 3,550. That is 603,550 men over 20 years who were able to go forth to war. That's a lot of people. And that's just the men. You could double that for the women then. So let's say there's an equal number of men and women. You are now talking about 1.2 million. If you add in those who were under the age of 20, And if you read the next verse, verse 47, but the Levites after the tribe of their father were not numbered among them. So the whole tribe of Levi wasn't numbered. And that means we're talking here roughly about 2 million people. In Northern Ireland, there's about just less than 1.5 million. Moses is leading a group of people more numerous than the whole country of Northern Ireland here. So a lot of responsibility indeed. Anyway, we'll leave our reading there and we'll come to Look at this book this morning and then in weeks to come we'll just deal with specific chapters as we work our way through it. But this has been a great encouragement to my own soul to look at this book of Numbers in the weeks gone past. Amen and amen. So please have your Bibles open then at the Book of Numbers and the chapter one. Now, just to clarify, we are continuing with the life of Moses. The last time I was with you, we were still with Moses at Mount Sinai. You will remember the circumstances. The children of Israel have been brought out of Egypt and God brought them as far as Sinai. And when they arrived at Sinai, God called Moses up to the mount, and he was there for 40 days. No food, no water, no nothing. He was there in direct communion with God, receiving the Ten Commandments. Now, while he was up there, a few meters below, eventually, the people became weary, waiting, and engaged in enormous sin and great iniquity. Idolatry. Adultery. all kinds of sins. And Moses was required to come down again, spoke to the people, broke the table, the two tables of the Ten Commandments, and rebuked the people sternly, severely, in the will of God. And then the Lord called them back up the mountain for a further 40 days to again receive the Ten Commandments. And then Moses came down. And after he came down, you remember what happened. They began to build the tabernacle, that tent where they would meet with God. If you go back to chapter 40 of Exodus for a moment. Exodus chapter 40, please. And Exodus chapter 40, and the verse 17. Look what it says here. It's New Year's Day. Exodus 40, verse 17. And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up." So here's New Year's Day. They have now left Egypt exactly to the day one year ago. And here's the first day of the second year. Okay? Twelve months have done. New Year's Day, and they rear up the tabernacle. Then you come to the book of Leviticus, which in my Bible is just across the page. The tabernacle is built. And in chapter one of Leviticus verse one, remember what we read here, it said, and the Lord called onto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying. So here now is God speaking from the tabernacle. No longer up in Mount Sinai, but Moses meets the Lord in the tabernacle, the house of God, you could say. And then come to our text this morning in Numbers. And look what Numbers says, Numbers 1, verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. We're still in Sinai. In the tabernacle of the congregation on the first day of the second month in the second year. So they built the tabernacle, New Year's Day. That month was completed, and then the beginning of the next month, God spoke to Moses again and told Moses to number the people, and that is when Numbers was written, recorded. That's the period we're reading now. So, again, I'm telling you, I had to give you a little bit of a understanding of the timing, of the location when all of this is happening. So they haven't moved an inch from Exodus 19. Haven't moved an inch, still at Mount Sinai. Leviticus, you know, was the book given, well, to give direction on how to worship God, specifically for the Levites, because they would lead it, but also for the people on how they would worship God. Numbers is a book of organization. It's a history book. One book was a worship manual. This one is a history book. It's about organization. Men and women, God inspired Moses to write this book for your benefit as much as the people in that day. And this is a book, perhaps, we're not prone to run to begin to read, but it is a most important and beneficial book indeed. Yes, it starts off with names upon names, and you're conscious of that while you're reading it. No doubt you're following closely to the reading this morning. Looking to see if I made any mistakes. I'm sure I made plenty. Nevertheless, it's a book full of names and families and everything else. It's a registration of the tribes of Israel. Now, here's the problem. For all of our lives, in school or whatever studying you've done, you've always been taught to read a book and to try and to memorize as many facts as possible, and that's all you do. And that's fine. When you're reading books, yes, read them. Remember the facts. But this is no ordinary book. This book isn't only to give you facts and figures. This book is to present God to you. And so when you're reading this list of names, You have to be thinking, how do I learn about the Lord here? What is God telling me as I read these details? The Bible should never be read like a secular history book. It should be read as a divine book revealing God. What Numbers is doing is simply this. It reveals to us three main things. Number one, and remember these, God's wisdom. Number two, God's justice. And number three, God's faithfulness. And that's what we're gonna look at this morning. Wisdom, justice, and faithfulness. And if you get those three, you'll understand the book of Numbers very clearly. Firstly, this morning, so we're looking at the book of Numbers that deals with God's wise, just, and faithfulness. Firstly, I want you to see God's wise dealings with his people. That's what you have in the First section of this book. The book can be split into three sections. You have them actually on your notes. You'll see them in blue. The first section is verses 1 to 9. That's the preparation for journey to the promised land. Verses 10 to 19, the first approach into the promised land. And then over the page in blue again, chapters 20, 36, is the second approach into the promised land. Three very clear stages here. They're preparing to leave Sinai and go to the promised land. Preparation. And then they begin to approach the promised land. They fail to do so. And then there is a second approach. And that is the remainder of the book. So, we are in the first section here, verses chapters 1 to 9. It's God's wives dealing with His people. These chapters deal, like we know and as I've said, with organization, names and lists and numbers. Get all the people together and gather them that they might be in ranks and in positions. Every family you see here had a place. Reuben had his place. Simeon had his place. Judah had his place. Issachar had their place. Every family in the providence of God was named, numbered, and positioned somewhere. And here's the thing, men and women, and I want to go to a little bit of application at this point. You and I, we have our place. In the providence of God, we are where we are for a reason. And we are to be content where we are, and we are to serve God faithfully where we are. Now, in our Wednesday night prayer meetings some months ago, remember how we were dealing with government, self-government, family government, church government, civil government, and all of those spheres had people who were responsible, and we're the same today. If you're in government, you have specific responsibilities. If you're in church, an elder, you have a committee man, you have specific responsibilities. If you're in a family, parents, children, have specific responsibilities. And as individuals, we have specific responsibilities. Now, think about that just for a moment. Let's say as an individual, you begin to feel in self-government. Let's say you let yourself go to do whatever you want. You don't care what your parents say. You don't care what the government says. You don't care what your church says. And you're going to go and live whatever way you want. Well, what happens? If you don't govern yourself, well, somebody who has responsibility and authority will come and govern you instead. If you break the law, government will step in because they have the authority to wield the sword. and to punish those who are criminals. At church, we have been given the sacraments. And when someone is stepping out of line and behaving ungodly, well those things are taken away to show how ungodly you're behaving. You see, if we can't govern ourselves individually, somebody else will have to govern us instead. That's important, because if we govern ourselves well, the Bible tells us the order to whom order, if you govern yourself personally well, well, you'll be better in your family. And if you're governing yourself well and your family well, perhaps the Lord will give you other spheres of responsibility as well. But when you don't govern yourself well, things will be taken off you, and punishment will come in the providence of God. You see, God here is organizing these people. And he's telling them, who has authority? What's your place? Be content there and serve God well there. That's important. You see, brothers and sisters, Numbers is the most logical book in this position in God's word. What was Genesis about? What's Genesis about? The book of beginnings. Mankind was made. God called out a people to himself. It was the beginning of mankind. It was the beginning of God's people What was the next book about? Exodus. Exodus is about God taking those people whom he had called and he brought them out of the world, out of Egypt, and they enter into a covenant. So God has made a people, he has brought that people out from the world, now in numbers, what's God doing in numbers? He is organizing them into an army that will accomplish His will on earth. That's what's happening here. Can you see the order here? God makes a people. God calls them out. And now God prepares them for service. That's most important. In Numbers, God organizes the people to serve Him well. Would you look at your outline for a minute here? And I hope this helps you to understand the book of Numbers. We have a wise God and wisely. You see, chaos is not of God, but organization is. The Lord is a God of order. Now look at our outline here. The first section, chapters 1 to 9. I should have had these in bold for you, but you'll see there chapter 1 is about registration of the tribes. Thousand men, and then the women afterwards, and children, and Levi. Chapter 2 is about the organization of the tribe. I hope you're seeing these here. Chapter 2, the organization of the tribe. Each man is numbered by his families, and every individual family has their place and work for God. Chapter 3, it's consecration. of the tribe of Levi for service. He's the called out tribe to work in the sanctuary. Chapter four, specialization for specific service. There were specific tasks that had to be done and God gave each individual a task. Chapter five, purgation of the people of God for service. He's going to make them wholly clean themselves. Chapter six, separation. Of the Nazarite for service, and the word Tsar in the Bible, Nazarite means one who is separated, and that was someone who for a time would set themselves aside to focus on spiritual work for God. Chapter 7, dedication of the altar. Chapter 8, purification of the Levites. Chapter 9, commemoration of the Passover. And so those first nine chapters, God is organizing, organizing, organizing. You do this. You do that. Here's how you do this. That's what it's all about. You see, we have a God of order, the God who sets all things in place. So here's the covenant people called to serve God on earth, and everyone has their place, and everyone has their work to do. I just want you to see there the wisdom of God. Israel wasn't two million people just randomly walking through the wilderness and Moses leading them. No, everybody had something to do. And they knew the rule and did it well. Serve God in those times of sin, for sure, and we'll see that. And so the first section of this book is about the wisdom of God. But can I show you then the second section of this book? It's the justice of God. If you go with me to chapter 11. Let's go there, Numbers chapter 11. Now, before we read this, wouldn't you expect And by the way, chapter 10 is where they began to blow the trumpets and they begin to march. They begin to get underway. Well, let's just read that actually. Chapter 10 and the verse 11. Chapter 10, verse 11. Here they're leaving now Sinai. And it came to pass on the 20th day of the second month in the second year that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of testimony and the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai And the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran. So here's the people, they're packing up, they're getting ready to go. After all this time from Exodus 19, now they're leaving. The trumpets are blown, they get ready to go. Now, surely you would expect these people who have Witness great blessings and the power of God doing great miracles for them. Surely this people who have already been severely rebuked for their idolatry at the foot of Sinai, you would expect these people to be very zealous for the Lord. Jealous for God's glory. You'd expect here would be a people content and godly and trusting and faithful to the Lord. You'd expect that after everything they have seen, from the plagues, to the water coming from the rock, and the bitter waters being sweet, and from the thunderings of God up in Mount Sinai, surely, surely, surely, this should be a holy, diligent people who would walk closely with the Lord. That's what you would expect. So they leave Sinai, and read chapter 11 with me, please. Just to verse one. And when the people complained, here we go. Just left Sinai, and when the people complained, and no wonder, it displeased the Lord. And the Lord heard it, and His anger was kindled. They're murmuring. Straight away, they're murmuring. Look at chapter 12. Chapter 12, verse 1. And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And this was pride. You see, Aaron and Miriam, you can read the whole chapter, and we'll come to it at some stage, they were jealous because everybody listened to Moses and nobody listened to them. That's our wee brother, Moses. I'm your elder sister. I was the one who stood at the River Nile and rescued you. I told Pharaoh's daughter to go and get my mom, your mom, to look after you. Moses, you just remember who you are. I'm your big sister. Aaron would come along and would say yes Moses. I am your big brother And there was jealousy. It was pride amongst the leadership now Chapter 11 the people murmur chapter 12. There is pride chapter 13. Let's go there chapter 13 and the verse 31 Here is the here's the spies the 12 spies chapter 31 here's what says but the man that went up with him said, we be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. Here the 12 spies, they went away and 10 of them brought back this evil report. We be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. And what you have here is faithlessness now. The people hear this report and they give up. They've no faith. God has said to them, I will give you the promised land. They arrive, now here they are. There's no 40 years journey here. There's a very short period of time has passed, maybe weeks. They have arrived at the promised land. Here we are, they stand there, they look in and they say, no, we can't do that. Look at the size of the enemies, faithlessness. And then come to chapter 14. Here now is clear disobedience. Chapter 14 and the verse 4. Chapter 14, 4. And they said one to another, let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt. Let's go back to Egypt. That's disobedience. So chapter 11, murmuring. 12, pride. 13, faithfulness. Chapter 14, disobedience. Can you see the progression here? What has just happened? The people of God are now in breach of covenant. And I want you to understand what I mean there. They are in breach of covenant. God made a covenant with them. You obey me. You follow me. You... What did the people say? The people said, whatever God says, we will do. And here they are murmuring, proud, faithless, and disobedient. They have broken their part in the covenant. Sometimes we do that, don't we? We know full well that we ought to be obedient to the Lord, and we murmur, and we're proud, and we're faithless, and we're disobedient. These people were in breach of covenant right now. And can I ask you something? Can you enter into a covenant with God and continually be in breach of that covenant, breaking your covenant requirements? Can that continue? Well, the Lord sent chastenings and rebukes to the people here over and over again. The Lord gently corrected them and plagued them at times severely. But look at chapter 14 and the verse 27. This is God's justice. We saw his wisdom. Here's God's justice now. Chapter 14, verse 27. How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, the Lord said. which murmur against me. I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ear, so will I do to you. Verse 29, Your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness. And all that were numbered of you Did you hear that? All that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from 20 years old and upward, which murmured against me, doubtless he shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein. See of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. But your little ones, which he said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. You see that? They've been murmuring, they've been proud, they've been faithless, they've been disobedient, they're in breach of contract, and so God says, you're not coming into the promised land. What's that mean? You see, these people forfeited great promises, great blessings. Because of their behavior, sin has an effect, believer. Christian, sin has an effect. These people could have enjoyed great victory. These people could have enjoyed great blessings, but instead they forfeited it all and they wasted their life. Instead, instead of this point going into the promised land, they now spend 38 years, almost 40 years now, walking in circles in the wilderness. Because that's what happens. They leave the borders of the promised land, they walk around in circles until every one of them's dead. Lives utterly wasted. And let's just pause there for a minute. Anybody here today like that? Could you be living in the wilderness, possibly 40 years of walking around and around and around and getting nowhere? There's many men, people in the Bible who live like that. Remember a lot. He went into Sodom and his life was nothing but a wilderness. What about King Saul, anointed of God to be the leader of Israel, the King of Israel? Walked in the wilderness for the last years of his life, filled with envy and pride of David. Didn't obey God. What about Samson? Many years. And Samson was a bit different. In Samson's case, there were periods of wilderness wandering and then periods of serving God. You see that in his latter years, where he would end up in prison with the Philistines. and then turned to the Lord and again was victorious. It is possible to spend years in the wilderness accomplishing nothing for God. Understand God chastens. And when the chastening doesn't work, well then, blessings are taken away. Remember that, men and women. When we break God's law, the Lord might chasten us. It's the same with your children. You might chasten children, but if the chastening does not accomplish the desired effect of repentance and renewal and improvement, well then, blessings are removed and taken away. That's how God works with us, you know. Lastly here, let's move on to get to the conclusion of God's faithfulness. We saw God's wisdom in organizing the people. We saw God's justice in punishing the people. And we have to ask the question now, are the promises, are the blessings of God all lost? Has Israel so messed up there's no hope for them? Well, I'm gonna show you God's faithfulness, even when the people aren't faithful. There is an astounding passage in Numbers 23. Let's go there. And we'll be staying with Numbers 23 until we conclude, so let's just turn there and we're staying there. Numbers 23. Remember all that's happened. God delivered them. God spoke to them at Sinai. They sinned enormously. The Lord of mercy spared them. They walk into the wilderness now. Murmuring, proud, faithless, disobedient. They have forfeited the present enjoyment of the promised land. And then you come to chapter 23, and here you have Balaam. Remember Balaam and his ass, and that old donkey would have talked to him. Extraordinary passage. God even used an animal to rebuke this man. But in Numbers 23, and we'll look at this at some stage in the weeks to come. But you'll remember how Balaam was asked to come and to curse Israel. Well, here's what happened. Go to verse number seven here for a moment. Numbers 23, verse seven. And he took up his parable and said, This is Balaam speaking. And he, Balaam, took up his parable and said, hope you're with me now, Numbers 23 verse 7. And he took up his parable and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram out of the mountains of the east saying, come curse me Jacob and come defy Israel. How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? Or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? Verse 18. And he took up his parable and said, Rise up, Bilak. And here, hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor. God is not a man that he should not lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless, and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it." And what's Balaam saying here? Balaam was being sovereignly moved of God. He was being told by the king of that nation to curse Israel, but when he came to curse them, he couldn't do it. Why? Because God took control of Balaam and made these great announcements. Those are my people. I love them. I care for them. The murmurers, the proud, the faithless, the disobedient. God says in Numbers 23, while these people are wandering in circles, God says, I still love them. And here's what I want you to see. God's faithfulness, even when we are faithless. Even when we feel, even when we mess up, God's covenants still stand. His plans are not thwarted. And I want that to encourage every one of us here today, because we're all murmurers. Don't tell yourself anything else. We're all murmurers, we're all proud. There are times of faithlessness, there are times of disobedience. And what does God say? At times we will forfeit present blessings, but God's covenant to save is not thwarted. Not thwarted. And we can lose. You'll lose blessings this week. You have lost many blessings over your lifetime, but God still holds you. He will bring you into the heavenly Eden. That's a fact. So in this book, we see God's wisdom in organizing the people. We should be wise and endeavor to be well organized because chaos is not of God. We see God's justice and that he will always punish sin. So be prepared when you break God's law, there's punishment coming. Maybe God was drawing his blessing, but there will be punishment. And then lastly, we see God's faithfulness Even though we at times sin and break God's law, still he loves us, still he cares for his people and does not forget us. So in conclusion, this book proclaims God's wisdom, God's justice, God's faithfulness to his covenant people. Sin, weakness, and unbelief minimum robs us of blessing. We ought to flee sin. We ought to flee that which drives away the presence of God. But even when we do break the Lord's law, know this salvation doesn't depend upon our good works. It depends upon God's good work to save us. And so we're thankful for a wise, just, and faithful God as seen in the book of Numbers. Amen. Let's bow in a word of prayer. Gracious God and heavenly Father, we bow before thee. We're thankful for one who is wise. It's good to have a wise counsellor. Thankful for one who is just. We'll deal with sin, but we're thankful we have one who is also faithful. Faithful in your love and your covenants and your mercy. And we rejoice, Lord, in thy covenant love towards thy people. Lord, for everyone here, help us to shun sin, that we would not forfeit present blessings. But we're always thankful we're in the hand of God for eternal well-being. Do us good now today. Remember our congregation. Bring us back tonight. In the Savior's name we pray, amen and amen.