Today Joshua and Caleb urge the people not to fear, trust the Lord, and take the land! Remember, the Lord already provided victory when Joshua led the people in battle against the Amalekites. Joshua and Caleb know that He will provide victory again. However, standing alone for the Lord is not easy! The people want to stone them but Joshua’s and Caleb’s fate isn’t in the hands of the people, it‘s with God Almighty! As a punishment for the people’s rebellion, the Lord says anyone who was 20 years old and older and saw ALL the miraculous signs He performed in Egypt and the wilderness and STILL didn’t trust Him; they would die in the wilderness. The only ones of that generation that will enter the promised land are the 2 faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb. They will lead a whole new generation into Canaan after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Well, the people didn’t like this punishment so the next day they went and tried to take the land without the Lord and learned the hard way that you will not succeed without God!

Towards the end of the reading we learned that the whole congregation stoned to death a man for collecting sticks on the sabbath. 😳 Ok, I know that seems harsh but we have to remember that it isn’t about what we think is fair or isn’t fair. It is about what HE SAID and we read on Feb 10th the punishment for working on the sabbath was death. The Lord desires for His people to obey Him and it is for their own good! He even helps them out with this by telling them to put tassels on their clothing so they will remember His commandments and not “follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own mind are inclined”.

Jeremiah 17:9 says “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”. Well, God knows but He is sending the One to give us a new heart! (Ezekiel 36:26) Also remember that we aren’t saved based on works. God knows hearts and He knows which ones have faith in Him and which ones don’t. Our faith leads us to desire obedience. (James 2:14-26) Keep reading bc shockingly enough there is more disobedience tomorrow. Will they ever learn?!

(Numbers 14:1-15:41)

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So we start off with the people complaining. Basically, the mixed multitude was sick of eating manna and wanted meat. This got the Israelites all riled up for some meat too which led the Lord to shoot fire out and consume some of the complainers. Moses intercedes for the people and “the fire was quenched”. As a result of all the drama Moses is now asking the Lord to just “please kill me here and now”. God doesn’t kill him. Instead He provided him with 70 men to share the burden of the people. The Lord ends up giving them meat. He is going to give them so much meat “until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the Lord who is among you”. The Lord was tired of the people longing for what was in Egypt instead of trusting and delighting in Him.

Well next Miriam and Aaron question Moses about his Ethiopian wife. No one really knows if this is Zipporah or if Moses took a second wife but that isn’t the issue. The issue is them questioning Moses’s authority which makes the Lord angry. As a result, Miriam becomes leprous which impacts the entire community. They have to wait 7 days until she is healed before they could journey further.

Lastly we read about the 12 spies, one from each tribe, who spied out the land. 10 out of 12 come back with a bad report and put fear in the hearts and minds of the people. Caleb steps forward telling the people they can overcome and take the land. Tomorrow another spy will step forward with Caleb to tell the people to trust the Lord and take the land. Will the people obey? Keep reading to find out.

(Numbers 11:1-13:33)

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Any man or woman who wanted to consecrate themselves to the Lord could become a Nazarite. This was voluntary and for a specific period of time. There are three people in the Bible who were separated to the Lord by their parents at birth: Samuel, Samson, and John the Baptist. Nazarites had to follow certain rules. One rule was that they could not cut their hair. This is a big deal in the life of Samson but we will read about Samson, Samuel and John the Baptist down the road.

Next the priests gave a beautiful blessing over the children of Israel before they traveled. God created a system using trumpets “for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camp”. So the trumpets were blown and the children of Israel “set out from the Wilderness of Sinai on their journeys; then the cloud settled down in the wilderness of Paran”. The Lord guided His people on the three day journey. “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” (Psalm 37:23-24)

Tomorrow we will see how grateful the people are for the Lord. Well…not really. It’s actually going to be the opposite. The people will complain again, Miriam and Aaron go against Moses, and there is an epic fail with 10 of the 12 spies. Keep reading.

(Numbers 6:1-27, Numbers 10:1-36)

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I mentioned on our Feb 15th reading that the sons of Kohath had a stressful job. Today we learned about the task assigned to them. When it comes time for the Israelites to journey, three Levite clans (Kohathite, Gershonite, and Merarite) are responsible for transporting the tabernacle. Aaron and Moses take down the most holy things in the tabernacle and cover the items with badger skins and cloth. “And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, when the camp is set to go, then the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them; but they shall not touch any holy things, lest they die.” That would be a bad day at work! God is so holy that he tells Aaron and Moses, regarding covering the holy items, “but do this in regard to them, that they may live and not die when they approach the most holy things…But they shall not go in to watch while the holy things are being covered, lest they die”. 😱 Remember, we are separated from the Lord bc of sin. The Lord is making a way for us to have an intimate relationship with Him and one day the people won’t need a high priest as the go between. But until Jesus comes, God makes very clear the way to approach Him.

Lastly today we read about protecting marital faithfulness. What’s up with a woman having to drink bitter water that would bring a curse on her and swell her belly and rot her thigh? 😳 So, this is the Lord’s protection of faithful wives. A man can’t falsely accuse his wife of cheating on him and shame her and kick her out. The Lord loves and protects women. However, this bitter curse drink would be a good incentive for a woman to remain faithful because we know that no woman wants a fat belly and a rotten thigh. The Lord knows that infidelity breaks marriages, harms children, and destroys relationships with others. It hurts those committing the adultery and those surrounding them. The Lord wants to protect us from that deep pain. Also, God values marriage! He is the One that created it back in the garden with Adam and Eve. Keep reading bc tomorrow the children of Israel pack up and move.

(Numbers 4:1-5:31)

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Today the Lord organized the camp grounds for the children of Israel around the tabernacle. He separately organized the Levites. We learned that only the descendants of Aaron were priests but the entire tribe of Levi were to serve the priests. When the Israelites first came out of Egypt the Lord said “Consecrate to Me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both man and beast; it is Mine”. Exodus 13:1 Today we see God is saying “Now behold, I Myself have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the children of Israel”. So God has Moses count all the firstborn males, one month and older, from the children of Israel and there were 273 more than the number of Levites. The Lord assigned a monetary value for the 273 additional firstborn males to be paid to Aaron the priest. Tomorrow we will learn more about the responsibilities assigned to the Levites. Keep reading!

(Numbers 2:1-3:51)

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Today we finish Leviticus 🎉 with the Lord’s instructions on redeeming gifts offered to Him. Part of the instructions include assigning values to a person based on their age and usefulness to society…sort of like a modern day insurance plan. The book ends with the Lord saying “These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai”.

Next, we jump into the book of Numbers. This book begins with Moses taking a census on the “first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt”. The census highlights God’s promise to Abraham that He would make him a great nation. The 70 Israelites that came to Egypt during the famine have grown to what most scholars believe to be over 2 million Israelites. We read that Aaron and Moses took a head from each tribe and then counted the men over 20 eligible for war with Judah being the largest tribe. Also, we see Jacob’s blessing of Joseph’s younger son over the older son played out here as well with Ephraim having the greater tribe than Manasseh.

Lastly, we read that the Levites were not included in the census with the tribes of Israel bc they were to be set apart for the work of the tabernacle. Keep reading bc tomorrow we see our orderly God further organizing His people for the wilderness journey.

(Leviticus 27:1-34, Numbers 1:1-54)

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Today we read the blessings for obedience and the punishments for disobedience in Leveticus 26. Did you notice that 13 verses were dedicated to the blessings and 32 verses were dedicated to the punishments? The Lord is a good Father! He is warning His children, whom He loves greatly, of the punishments for their disobedience just like we warn our own children. (Ex. If you stay in the backyard, we will go for ice cream later. If you don’t obey, there will be no ice cream, you will be sent to your room, I will take away the tv, all video games, and anything else dear to you!) Why do we do this as parents? Because we know the dangers that could come upon that child if he or she leaves the backyard without us. God’s love for His children is far greater than anything we can give and His ways are far greater than anything we can imagine.

The Lord’s desire has always been for His children to walk with Him by faith and trust that His Word is good. We saw this back in the garden with Adam and Eve. He told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bc He knew what would happen if they did. They chose to disobey His Word and sin entered the world but He didn’t abandon His children. He had a plan to save them. We see Him say something similar in today’s reading. He says if they obey “I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people”. Then He gives them a long list of what will happen if they disobey, one being “I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies”. The punishment is to bring His children to repentance so they will turn back to Him. He goes on to say “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness which they were unfaithful to me…then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember…when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them”. This is exactly what will eventually happen. One day the Israelites will be taken away by their enemies but a lot more happens before we get to that part of the Story so keep reading!

(Leviticus 25:24-26:46)

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Today the Lord instructs the children of Israel to celebrate certain feasts where they are to rest and worship Him. He tells the people “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings”. God modeled the seventh day of rest during creation. He goes on to say that in addition to a weekly sabbath there will be a Sabbath Year. “Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord.” Then He goes even further to say there shall be a sabbath year after 7 cycles of 7 years (49 years). This is called the Year of Jubilee. In this year all slaves were released, debts were forgiven, possessions were returned and there was rest from work for the people and the land. This is a picture of the rest to come in Jesus.

Ok, get ready to have your mind blown!! I love the way Tim Keller explains this in his book Hidden Christmas. “Finally we learn from the genealogies that Jesus is the ultimate rest. At the end of the genealogy, Matthew makes much of the numbers of generations. In Matthew 1:17 he says there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the exile in Babylon, and fourteen generations from the exile to Christ. So there have been “six sevens” of generations, and that makes Jesus the beginning of the seventh seven…The seventh seven, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, was a foretaste of the final rest that all will have when God renews the earth (Romans 8:18-23, Hebrews 4:1-11).” 🤯 How cool is that?! We have an orderly God who is working His plan for our ultimate rest! Keep reading!

(Leviticus 23:1-25:23)

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Today the Lord told the children of Israel that whoever “…gives any of his descendants to Molech, he shall surely be put to death”. Molech worship involves child sacrifices. God takes very seriously the sacrifice of children and He will serve justice to those doing this sort of practice. The Lord then addresses the worship of mediums, cursing your parents, and sexual sin. If a person violates His commandments he will be either cut off from the people or killed.

The Lord goes on to give additional instructions for the priests on holiness. He tells them what sacrifices are acceptable. God says that the offerings “must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect in it”. Hebrews chapter 10 explains that animal sacrifices just covered our sins but Jesus’s blood takes away our sins. “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:3-4) “…He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:9-10) One day the Lord will do away with the sacrificial system and His Son will do for us what animal blood can’t but that is later in the Story so keep reading!

(Leviticus 20:1-22:33)

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Today the Lord tells His people not to be like the people in Egypt where they left nor like the people in Canaan where they are going. He instructs the Israelites not to uncover the nakedness of their father, mother, sister, aunt, uncle, etc. He also tells them not to lay with a man as a woman and don’t have sex with animals. 🤔 I wonder why He has to tell them this? Oh. That’s right. It’s bc the people around them are doing all these things. “Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you”. Remember the Canaanites were cursed as a result of whatever Ham did to naked Noah. Well they apparently continued in their sexual sin.

The Lord goes on to tell them how to treat one another including the poor, blind, deaf, and strangers. God commands His people to be honest, fair, and kind to one another. He says “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord”. God wants His people to be holy and a light in this dark world to draw others into His presence.

We will see down the road a Canaanite harlot is drawn into the light and ends up in the lineage of Jesus Christ! Keep reading bc tomorrow we find out what happens if the Israelites don’t obey God’s commandments.

(Leviticus 17:1-19:37)

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