The Pentateuch- Holy God, Holy People, Holy Calling Pentateuch Sermon Series Kenwood Baptist Church Pastor David Palmer November 22, 2020 TEXT: Number 9:15-23 Good morning beloved. We continue this morning in our study of the Pentateuch, God's great base story of the Scripture. We are reading the text this fall together with Bible Journey, and I still want to invite you to join us at this stage in the journey. This Sunday and next, we will finish our study of the first of the Old Testament studies, on the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch means the five scrolls. We have covered the territory of Genesis, creation; Exodus, God's act of redemption, bringing us to the mountain of His presence. We paused there for a year, and we remained at the base of Mount Sinai as God spoke the Word to us of His will in Leviticus – “to be holy, for I am holy.” Now it is time to move. It's time to move in the book of Numbers. We call this book Numbers because as you read the book of Numbers, there are a lot of numbers. This name comes from the Greek naming of the books of the Bible that is followed in many English versions. In Hebrew, this book of the Bible is called “In the Wilderness” because we leave the place of Mount Sinai and move through the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. You may feel like you're in a wilderness this year, and we need the book of Numbers to remind us that God is committed to leading us safely through the wilderness. It is critical for us in this portion of Scripture to recognize that God has to remain at the center of our lives. You will face pressure from the right and from the left, from the outside and the inside, to move away from having God at the center, and the book of Numbers will teach us to keep God central in our lives. We have to keep our eyes fixed upon Him. It is easy to get distracted by our own needs, simple needs, physical needs. It's easy to get distracted or overwhelmed by our emotional needs. It's easy to romanticize the past and think that the way things used to be were great, when in fact they weren't. We need God's presence to guide us, and He will guide us in His commitment to us as our heavenly Father, our Covenant King. It is critical for us, as the people of God, to follow Him wherever He goes. That's the first great Page 1 of 13 lesson of our passage this morning. We’re going to look at Numbers 9 to see this orientation of the heart, and then we will illustrate how critical this is from a couple of further passages in the book of Numbers. So, keep your Bible open as we walk through the book of Numbers in its entirety this morning. The book of Numbers begins with a description of the camp. It is not a chaotic camp. Whenever you go camping in the wilderness, it is always good to have a reliable guide. There are always those people in the group who really seem to know what they're doing, who actually know how to pitch the tent, and those are good people to identify. The camp is described in an organized way. This is important, and the first several chapters of Numbers describe the camp and the participation of everyone. Finally, when we reach Numbers 9, we have the description that were about to set out. The journey is about to begin, and as the journey begins, we discover in the text God's commitment to guide us. We read in Numbers 9:15: “On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony. And at evening it was over the tabernacle like the appearance of fire until morning.” Remember this is God's tent. It's also the tent of the testimony, which I love. You can call the tabernacle God's tent, but it's the tent of the testimony. At the center of God's tent, the absolute center of gravity for us as God's people, is the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark are the tablets of the testimony of who God is, what He has done, and what He calls us to do. So, this is not just a tent for God to dwell in. It is also the state archive. It is also the place where we actually have the documents for what God calls us to do. The day the tent was set up, the cloud of God's presence hovered over the tent. Its appearance was like fire until the morning. It was God's personal presence. The cloud of fire and the cloud of His presence, we read in Numbers 9:16, was always there: “So it was always: the cloud covered it by day and the appearance of fire by night.” I am so encouraged in my own soul to tell you this morning from God's Word that Numbers 9:16 tells you that God is always there. If all we had was Numbers 9, if that was the only passage of Scripture that we had, we would know that God is always with us. He is always there. The cloud and the fire are not an apparition. They are not a special, magical sign. Remember that the cloud and fire are the personal presence of God, just as we all saw on at Mount Sinai that God's personal presence was there, and this personal presence means that God speaks to us. It is not only that we can see Him, but the living God is present and actually speaks and acts. This is the critical refrain in our text. We see that when God moves, we are to move. We see in Numbers 9:17: “And whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, after that the people of Israel set out, Page 2 of 13 and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the people of Israel camped.” The Hebrew says that the people pulled up. They pulled up their tent pegs, and they started journeying. When God stopped, they pitched camp. So, the first lesson of this passage is that when God moves, you move. When God stays, you stay. That’s it, if we could just do that. And yet, we have to be reminded of that. We have to be told and shown how many forces there are around us that will try to move us away from that fundamental orientation of the heart. Can we do that? When God moves, we move. When He stays, when He stops, then we stop. The task of the Christian is not to define God's presence. It's to keep God at the center, so you pitch your tent around where He is and you follow Him. This is the Old Testament version of what Jesus says: “Follow Me.” You follow Him and you go where He goes. You stop were He stops. You do what He commands you to do. This is a formula that is repeated three different times in our text. The first is in Numbers 9:18: “At the command of the LORD the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the LORD they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp.” Not only can we see the Lord, but He speaks. We read in Numbers 9:20: “Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle, and according to the command of the LORD they remained in camp; then according to the command of the LORD they set out.” The Christian life is lived as an extended version of this wilderness wandering, this journey through territory that God promises to bring us through. Sometimes the cloud remained just from evening until morning and then set out. Sometimes it was a day and a night, and then the cloud set out. Sometimes, as we see in Numbers 9:22: “Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out, but when it lifted they set out.” We don't move forward unless we move in response to the Lord, and we do not stay where we are if God moves forward. At the command of the Lord, they camped; at the command of the Lord, they set out. In Numbers 9:23, we see the third repetition of this phrase: Page 3 of 13 “At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out. They kept the charge of the LORD, at the command of the LORD by Moses.” This is Hebrew idiom for emphasizing something. You know that when parents really want to communicate with their children, they repeat themselves. Repetition is powerful, so three times in this text we have this line: “At the command of the Lord, they set out. At the command of the Lord, they camped.” So, when God moves, we move; when God stays we stay. When God's stays, notice that we keep the charge of the Lord. It's not that we stay and are idle, just waiting for when God is going to move again, as though the whole experience is just about traveling.