Bible Survey: Numbers
The theme of Numbers is walking by faith through the wilderness. Its Hebrew title means in the wilderness, and our English name comes from the censuses of the people. Moses wrote it: Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD (Numbers 33:2).
A journey of a few weeks took forty years. At Kadesh-barnea twelve spies searched the land for forty days, and ten of them brought back an evil report. Only Joshua and Caleb believed God, and the people were sentenced to wander each day for a year (Numbers 14:34). As John Phillips put it, they trusted God to bring them out of Egypt but failed to trust Him to bring them into Canaan.
Many Christians are the same. They have trusted the Lord to save them from hell, but not to lead them day by day. Brother Barker told of a couple, years ago, who only came to church on Sunday evenings because the wife worked Sunday mornings. When he asked whether the God who saved her could not find her another job, she said she had never thought of it that way. Within a couple of weeks she had a better one, with Sundays off, and the whole family was in church together on Sunday morning.
Numbers is also a book of murmuring. The people complained about the manna, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, and Korah led an open rebellion. To speak against the leader God had appointed was to speak against God.
Yet there is grace here too. When fiery serpents bit the people, Moses set a serpent of brass upon a pole, and whoever looked at it lived. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up (John 3:14). The gospel is that simple: look and live.
Next in the series: Deuteronomy.
Taught by Brother James Barker in Sunday School at Naples Independent Baptist Church, May 3, 2020. Watch the lesson.
