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Church
in the Wilderness 5
Numbers 9:15-23 – The LORD Who leads
On Friday morning I spent some time with Fred Crouch, an older
member of our congregation. He’s
nearly blind, pretty deaf, very frail, has bad angina but he loves
Jesus. He was talking about how
much he missed farming. He was a
farmer you see and he told me he missed milking the cows and he missed
driving the tractor, he missed living on the land. And I said to him, Fred, just this
morning I read in Romans chapter 8 that we’re looking forward to the
redemption of our bodies. And in fact
the redemption of the whole world.
New bodies, new eyes and ears and hearts on a new earth. I said, Fred, when Jesus comes back,
you can farm all you like. And I
tried to paint this picture of the future and Fred’s nodding as I tell
him, We’ll all be raised and made new when we’re in Jesus’ presence.
And Fred turned to look at me with his good eye and he said ‘We’re
in His presence now.’
We’re in His presence now. Fred
didn’t say anything to me that morning with as much conviction as he said
that. We’re in His presence
now. You can really tell that he
lives by that truth. We’re in His
presence now.
And that’s what this week is about in our series on the Church in
the Wilderness. We look forward to
a glorious hope in the Lord’s presence in the future – but we have His
presence now.
The Israelites were saved out of Egypt for the promised land, but
they had to go through the wilderness.
We were saved by Jesus from our sins, saved for new creation
life. But in the meantime we have
to go through a wilderness time of testing, hardship, discipline
But even so – we’re in His presence now. We will enjoy His presence in new ways
and in new dimensions then. But we
have His presence now. But we
don’t always feel it.
Last week we saw the grumbling of the Israelites. When they got hungry and thirsty they
grumbled. And chapter 17:7 tells
us the essence of their grumbles:
They said to one another “Is the LORD among us or not?" That’s the response of an unbelieving
people – Is the LORD among us or not?
Well He struck Egypt with ten almighty plagues. He split the Red Sea so that they
walked through it on dry ground. He
came between them and the Egyptians and fought against them for the
Israelites. He’s been personally
leading them in a giant pillar that’s cloud by day and fire by
night. He’s appeared to them as
the Glory of the LORD. He has
stood on the rock in front of the whole assembly as Moses splits it to
provide water. But nonetheless the
Israelites say to one another, Is the LORD among us or not?
Fred sits in his flat and knows – as deeply as he knows anything –
that the LORD is in his midst. Do
I? Do you?
That’s what we’re going to think about.
We’re going to think about the LORD’s presence as
Satisfying,
Summoning, Surprising, Step-by-step and Sure.
First – satisfying.
Look at verse 15:
On the day the tabernacle, the Tent of
the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening till
morning the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire.
The LORD is with His people in a cloud by day and fire by night.
Which is very handy because what do you need if you’re walking
through a desert? You need shade
by day, heat and light by night.
Here’s what we’re being taught: the Lord does not lead them
anywhere without also equipping them.
They have the shade they need, the heat and light they need. You can imagine a conversation between
an Israelite and the LORD. The
Israelite says “LORD, you can’t lead me to the shore of the Red Sea I’m
trapped.” The LORD says, “Yes I
can lead you this way, and no you aren’t trapped. Here’s the way through.” The Israelite says “You can’t lead us
into the desert, we’ll starve.”
The LORD says, “Yes I can lead you into the desert and no you
won’t starve. Here’s the bread of
heaven.” The Israelite says “You
can’t sustain 3 million people in the desert, we’ll die of thirst.” The LORD says “Yes I can sustain you,
no you won’t die of thirst – Here’s a miraculous torrent of water gushing
from the rock.” The Israelites say
“You can’t keep us going for 40 years, our clothes will wear out and our
feet will swell.” Again and again
throughout the bible it says “Their clothes did not wear out and their
feet did not swell” because the LORD sustained them. They needed shade – He came to them in
a cloud. They needed light and
heat, He came to them in fire.
Whatever their needs, He satisfied.
Wherever He leads, He also equips.
And that’s just the day to day needs He satisfies. But the cloud of the LORD’s presence
also represents a deeper satisfaction.
Notice how the cloud is associated strongly with the tabernacle –
the tent of testimony. Well turn
to Exodus 33:7-11
7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch
it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the "tent of
meeting". Anyone enquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of
meeting outside the camp. 8 And whenever Moses went out to the
tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents,
watching Moses until he entered the tent. 9 As Moses went into
the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance,
while the LORD spoke with Moses. 10 Whenever the people saw
the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood
and worshipped, each at the entrance to his tent. 11 The LORD
would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then
Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun
did not leave the tent.
Here Moses describes some incredible encounters with the LORD. Here is the face to face LORD – we’ve
thought in previous weeks about how the face-to-face hands on LORD is not
the unseen Father, but it’s the Son of God before He was born at
Christimas. So here is incredible
intimacy with the face-to-face LORD and it’s all associated with the
pillar of cloud. The LORD doesn’t
only satisfy our physical needs day to day, at times He also gives us a satisfaction of the soul. Face to face as a man speaks with his
friend.
Do you know something of this soul-satisfying presence of the
LORD? The wilderness is not a time
of God’s absence you know.
Actually the LORD leads us into the wilderness to give us more of
Himself, not less. He wants to
starve us of the mundane and satisfy us with Himself.
It’s a truth that the 19th century American Evangelist
D.L. Moody learnt. He’d lost his
house and his church in the great fire of Chicago. He came to New York to raise money for
his church and many other churches and orphanages in Chicago. But it was in this state that Moody had
a deep encounter with God.
Here’s what he
wrote in his journal:
I was crying all the time God would fill
me with his Spirit. Well, one day in the city of New York - oh, what a
day! - I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too
sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never
spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me,
and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask him to stay
his hand.
I went to preaching again. The sermons
were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds
were converted. I would not be placed back where I was before that
blessed experience for all the world - it would be as the small dust of
the balance (Moody 1900:149).
In the wilderness
we have the satisfying presence of the LORD. And those who really encounter Him say
‘I would rather have the desert with my LORD, than well-fed in Egypt.’ I would rather have hardship with
Christ, than ease without Him. The
wilderness teaches us that the LORD is present with us and satisfies us
not just in spite of trouble but sometimes especially because of trouble.
But as soon as I
say that, we need to move onto the second point. The LORD’s presence is not just
satisfying, it’s also summoning.
What do I mean by
that? It’s the idea that the LORD
doesn’t just satisfy us but He summons us, calls us, order us, directs
us. Notice back in Numbers 9 that
the cloud of the presence is on the move.
Verse 17, when the
cloud lifts from the tent, they move.
When it settles, they encamp again. The LORD is not just to be enjoyed for
the satisfaction He brings – He is to be followed. And must be followed even as He
leads us further on into the wilderness and further away from Egypt. The people were constantly hankering
after Egypt. They’d developed
these ridiculous rose-coloured glasses about their former life. But the LORD had made the Red Sea a
one-way street. There was no going
back for the Israelites, He would lead them on further into the
wilderness. And the people were to
follow.
The presence of the
LORD not only satisfied the people, He led them, He summoned them to go
His way.
That’s important
for us to grasp. We love the idea
of being satisfied. We would love
to have the D.L. Moody experience.
But no-one wants the hardship that led to the experience. Moody was satisfied as He followed His
Lord into hardship. We can’t want
to enjoy the Lord and not want to follow Him.
I remember hearing
a Billy Graham sermon once from 50 years ago. And I love Billy Graham, I think he’s
been an incredible gift to the church.
But as he was encouraging people to give their lives to Christ he
had this line. He said “Be a
lawyer, be a doctor, be a teacher, just take Christ with you.”
As soon as I heard
that I raised an eyebrow. Because
that’s not how it’s described in the bible. In the bible – Christ takes you with
Him. It’s not so much Him coming
your way, it’s you going His way.
When Jesus met with the tax collector called Levi, Levi did not
say to Jesus ‘Come follow me.’
Jesus said to Levi ‘Come follow me.’ And maybe Jesus leads you
back into your old job, or maybe Jesus takes you completely out of your
old life. But He’s in charge. The cloud is on the move – leading us
away from Egypt, will we follow? We can’t have His satisfaction without
His summoning. We have His
presence as we go His way.
Thirdly, the LORD
guides us in surprising ways.
We’ve noted this verse before, but it’s worth remembering Exodus
13:17
Exodus 13:17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road
through the Philistine country, though that was shorter.
Instead He takes them to the shoreline of the Red Sea. He stirs up Pharaoh and the Egyptians
to chase the Israelites. And in
Exodus 14:7 He says why…
17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in
after them. And I will gain glory through
Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18
The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory
through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."
It is more glorious for God to save us and lead us surprisingly. It brings more glory to the LORD to
bring us through hardship and trouble.
The LORD will regularly choose to lead us NOT this way, but this
way. And to even work through our
disobedience and supervise our wanderings.
You see this was the path the Israelites would have taken if they
obeyed the LORD…
This is the path they eventually took because of their
disobedience…
But none of these are the ways the Israelites would have chosen.
The LORD leads surprisingly.
Not the way we’d do it.
And when I use the word ‘surprisingly’ it doesn’t really get at the
shock and horror we feel when the LORD leads us somewhere we think is a
total mistake. When the Israelites
were led to the Red Sea they said “Is it because there weren’t any graves
in Egypt that yuou brought us all out to kill us.” They weren’t just surprised. They were shocked and appalled. And in your moments there will be
moments, probably lots of them where you are sorely tempted to think
Jesus has either fallen asleep at the wheel of your life or He has driven
you over a cliff. ‘Surprise’
doesn’t quite do justice to the horror we feel that the LORD is not
following our plans. But allow
that shock to do its job. Because
here is what we’re really shocked about: We are shocked that the LORD has
plans of His own. We are shocked that He’s not following our carefully
plotted agenda. But we shouldn’t
be surprised that the LORD leads surprisingly. Not if He’s the LORD.
And we shouldn’t be surprised if it turns out our plans are
exceedingly narrow and need to be blown out of the water from time to
time. Because think about it: we don’t know how to get through a
Red Sea. So we’d never plan on
taking that route. God can get
through the Red Sea, so His list of options is far beyond ours. Because
God can do lots more than we can, He can and will think of some really
surprising routes for our lives.
And when we face our next Red Sea we can say ‘I don’t know how to
get through this, but the LORD’s led me here so, let’s see what glory can
come to Him out of this.’
The LORD leads surprisingly.
And He also leads step by step.
That’s what our passage teaches isn’t it? Numbers 9:22-23:
22 Whether the cloud stayed over the
tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain
in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. 23
At the LORD's command they encamped, and at the LORD's command they set
out. They obeyed the LORD's order, in accordance with his command through
Moses.
The LORD is teaching them great patience. Sometimes they stayed put a day,
sometimes a year. But they went
when the LORD went and stayed when He stayed. It’s a lesson very much in keeping with
the lesson of the manna. Do you remember from last week? The bread that the
LORD provided came day by day. You
couldn’t horde it for tomorrow or it would rot. And if you went out on the Sabbath to
get extra, there wouldn’t be any.
They had to trust the LORD day by day. They had everything they needed for
that day. And whatever they needed
for tomorrow they were to trust to the LORD for tomorrow. Similar lessons in contentment and
patience are being taught here.
Step by step guidance from the LORD.
The letter of James in the New Testament has some great teaching on
step by step guidance. He says:
James 4 13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we
will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and
make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will
happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a
little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say,
"If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
There’s a way of making plans that is incredibly arrogant, says
James. He goes on to talk about
how presuming to know your future is just boastful. We think of ourselves as though we are
the LORD in the pillar of cloud, boldly setting off and making our own
way. We don’t realize we are the
Israelites waiting on Him, day by day.
Now James here doesn’t say you can’t make plans. It’s just in v15 he says always do it
knowing ‘If it’s the Lord’s will, we will.’ If it’s the Lord’s will we will leave
Egypt, head straight for Canaan keeping the Mediteranean on our left and
we’ll be in the promised land in a fortnight. If He is pleased to lead us like that,
that’s what we’ll do. And if He’s
pleased to lead us straight to the Red Sea and if He’s pleased to stir up
Pharaoh’s army against us so that we are in mortal danger, that’s what
we’ll do too.
But He has the wisdom to plan the future, I don’t.
That’s such an important lesson to learn. To be guided step by step. To trust the LORD for today and trust
tomorrow to His wisdom.
But what freedom we could have if we lived this way. John Lennon said ‘Life is what happens
to you while you’re busy making plans.’
There we are plotting our little life goals and all the while life
is happening to us. How liberating
to actually trust tomorrow’s journey to tomorrow, and enjoy the LORD’s
presence today.
There’s incredible peace on offer if we learn to be guided
step-by-step. But finally, let’s
think about the SURE presence of the LORD. And this really is key.
The Israelites wondered among themselves – Is the LORD among us or
not? Even after all they’d seen,
they wondered Is the LORD among us?
How do we know He’s really with us? Especially when He’s so surprising and
so slow – is He really with us?
How can we be sure?
Well let’s just finish by thinking about the pillar of cloud and
fire for a minute.
This combination of cloud and fire has been a sign of the LORD’s
presence for almost 500 years prior to the wilderness wanderings. Turn back to Genesis 15. Here we are winding back the clock
almost 5 centuries to the time of Abraham. Here in Genesis 15, Abraham has just
been told that his offspring will inherit the promised land. They will.
8 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD,
how can I know that I shall gain possession of it?" 9 So
the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each
three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."
Basically these animals are all the sacrificial animals. You can just about make any blood
sacrifice from Leviticus from these animals.
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut
them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds,
however, he did not cut in half.
So he kills these sacrifices, cuts them in half and makes a
corridor between the halves of the carcasses. Now we know from elsewhere in the bible
that this is how you cut a covenant (eg Jer 34:18-20). God is making a covenant with Abraham.
What’s a covenant. A
covenant is a promise to bind yourself to another person.
Marriage is a
covenant – you say ‘I will love you.’ And not just ‘If you do X, Y, and Z, I
will be contractually obliged to love you between the hours of 5 and 7 on
a Thursday evening.’ That would be
a contract. A covenant says ‘I
will – for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in
health – I will.’ And the LORD
makes a covenant with us. The most
basic form of the LORD’s covenant throughout the Bible is this: “I will
be your God, and you will be my people.”
And you say, that’s
sweet, but why all the dead bodies around? Last wedding I was at, the decorations
were a little more tasteful. Well,
in the Bible, the dead bodies were a way of making an oath. You would
pass between the pieces of these animals and you would be saying ‘So let
it be done to me if I fail to deliver on my promise.’
There’s an example
of this in Jeremiah 34, basically, if you walk through these pieces
you’re saying “You can treat me like these butchered animals if I don’t
keep up my side of the deal.” We
have a silly version of this in the school-yard rhyme: ‘Cross my heart
and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.’ We’re saying, if I’m lying you can cut
me up. Now we don’t mean it when
we say stuff like that – in the Bible, they meant it. “Tear me apart if I don’t come through
for you.” That’s a serious
promise, that’s a covenant promise.
But I want you to
see what’s happening here. The
LORD doesn’t make Abram walk through the pieces. What happens?
12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into
a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13
Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants
will be strangers in a country not their own [Egypt], and they will be
enslaved and ill-treated four hundred years. 14 But I will
punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out
with great possessions.
A wonderfully accurate prediction of what would happen. But then look on to v17, here is how
Abraham will KNOW that his offspring will possess the land:
17 When the sun had set and darkness had
fallen, a smoking brazier with a blazing torch appeared and passed
between the pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant
with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the
river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates-- 19 the land
of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites,
Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites
and Jebusites."
Abraham does not
walk through the pieces. He’s not
contributing to this. We don’t
make the covenant with the LORD, He makes the covenant with us. The LORD passes through the pieces
represented by (v17) smoke and fire.
Abraham is not
pledging to keep up his end, the LORD is pledging to keep up both
ends of the covenant. The LORD
says to us “If I don’t keep up my end of the bargain you can kill
me. And if you don’t keep up your end you can kill me.” I’ll take responsibility for my failure
and I’ll take responsibility for your failure. That is unconditional, unearned,
unprecedented, committed, blood-earnest, covenant love.
God’s saying, “If I
fail, I’ll die. And if you fail,
I’ll die. But come what may,
through bloody sacrifice, through suffering, pain and tears: I will be
your God and you will be my people.
I’d rather die than lose you.
I will die to hold onto you. Our marriage cannot fail. It’s written in my blood – I will
uphold my end, I will uphold your end if it costs me everything.”
And of course we
didn’t hold up our end, we were never going to hold up our end. And it did cost Him everything. You see there was another day of thick
and dreadful darkness. There was
one Friday when the LORD Himself was torn apart and His blood shed. He was as good as His word. He would rather die than lose us, and
He laid down His life to keep us.
How can Abraham
know that his offspring will possess the land? Because the LORD has pledged His own
life as a guarantee. And He’s done
it in a cloudy firey presence. And
so when the LORD actually does bring the people up from Egypt centuries
later He appears among them in the cloudy firey pillar, reminding them
that He is upholding His covenant oath.
It would be like a husband appearing to his wife in his wedding
suit to reassure her that he still was determined to be her husband no
matter what had happened.
Throughout the wilderness wanderings the LORD appears in this way – the fiery-cloudy
covenant God, the LORD Who pledges Himself to you in death and
blood. The promise-keeping,
love-you-to-death, God of Abraham, He is the One who is with you. And before any of these Israelites were
born, the LORD had made this covenant.
In spite of failures of every kind that they would make, the LORD
had made this covenant – He underwrites even their failures with His own
blood.
The Israelites ask,
Is the LORD among us? The firey
cloudy pillar is the answer. He
swears on His own life to be their God and to bring them into the
promised hope.
And it’s the same
for us. How can we know that
Christ is with us in our wilderness experience? Well before any of us were even born,
Christ died on that cross. His
body broken, His blood – which He called the blood of the covenant – was
poured out. Long before you or I
had done anything, He made His oath.
And in spite of all our wickedness and failure, He has
underwritten our union with His own blood. Though it cost Him His life and though
we contribute only sins to the marriage, He is determined to save us and
bring us into the new creation.
He has loved us at
our worst. He has loved us when it
cost Him the most. He has loved us
long before we even had a thought for Him. Now that we are His, do we think He’s
going to abandon us?
1 Peter 3:18 says:
Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the
unrighteous, to bring you to God.
Christ died TO
BRING YOU TO GOD. Do you think
He’s going to abandon you on the way.
He’s given everything to get you to glory – He’s not going to
forsake you on the way.
So we have His presence. And it is satisfyingly for all our
needs. It is summoning – He leads
and we follow. It is surprising –
He leads according to His agenda not ours. It is step by step – we’re called to
trust Him for today. And it’s sure
– it is guaranteed by the LORD’s own death for us.
Fred was right, we’re in His presence now
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