I’ve been reading through the Old Testament this fall, and I am almost done with the book of Numbers. I wouldn’t say Leviticus and Numbers are two of my favorite books of the Bible. In fact, I get tired of reading the words “unclean” and all of the descriptions and laws surrounding this theme. The word “unclean” and its cognates occurs 132 times in the Old Testament; over 50 percent of these are in Leviticus. All these mentions of clean and unclean show us our need for a Saviour. They show us the beauty of Jesus and how he came to save those who are lost and sick and “unclean.”
I love the storyline of the Israelites, their Exodus and their wanderings in the wilderness. As I’ve read through the story again this fall, I’ve gotten frustrated by all the grumbling and complaining the Israelites did when God was SO good to them! He had mercy time and time again. He saved them. He delivered them. He defeated their enemies. He provided for them! He gave them His presence and he daily guided their steps. In all of this goodness they complained. They threatened to go back to Egypt. They tested God. They spoke against Him, and they failed to be content with the miracles he’d done and was continuing to do. God could have destroyed these stiff necked people when they angered his heart with their rebellion and unbelief, but time and time again he showed mercy and love.
The story of Moses has always fascinated me. His relationship with God was SO intimate. He spoke with God as a man speaks with a friend, face to face. He received instructions from the Lord for the people of Israel and was faithful to do and to say, everything just as God commanded Him. Except in ONE thing. The people of Israel were again grumbling and complaining. They needed water and came to Moses in anger telling him that they should never have left Egypt. Moses went before the Lord, exasperated by the people and asked God what to do. The Lord told him to speak to a specific rock and that water would flow out as a result. Moses then led the people to this rock and Moses struck the rock. In doing so, water came gushing out.
But because Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it, God told him that he would never enter the promised land. Yikes. Are you kidding me? Why!? He almost got it right. The water still came out….
This story has always bothered me. I mean, come on God! This man who obeyed you in everything else, this man who spoke to you face to face, this man who led your people out of Egypt and guided them through the wilderness, this man who was the most humble man in the whole earth, this man who wrote the first five books of the Bible, this man who fell on his face in intercession for your people. HE can’t enter the promised land because of ONE mistake! After years and years of serving God, that’s it. This always seemed a little harsh to me, but because I know that God’s ways are higher than mine and that God is always good, I just let it go and considered it a part of the Bible I didn’t fully understand.
Today, while driving my big white van, I was thinking about how in my own life, I’ll be trekking along, serving God, hearing His voice, and then bam. I sin. I mess up. I hear God wrong. I fail to do what God asks me to do. I complain like an Israelite. Ugh. Then I thought of Moses. It only took one sin to separate this man of God from the promise. It only takes one sin to separate me from God.
James 2:10 “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”
Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.”
It doesn’t matter how good I am MOST of the time. It doesn’t matter how often I keep God’s law, read his Word, pray, or serve Him. If I stumble even at ONE point, then I don’t deserve the promise. I too am unworthy to enter the Promised Land.
Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Now here is where I see the gospel revealed in the book of Numbers!
Romans 5:12 -21 tells us the good news of Jesus! Jesus’ obedience brings us face to face with the Father! Jesus’ obedience makes a way for US to enter the Promised Land!
I love how this passage of scripture is written in The Message Translation.
12-14 You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in—first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.
15-17 Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man’s sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God’s gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?
18-19 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
The promised land. Moses couldn’t enter the promised land because he sinned. I can’t enter the Promised Land because I sin. But because of Jesus and what He did in taking sin upon himself, dying on the cross, and three days later rising from the dead, I can now know God face to face. I can now enter the Promise. I can now experience His rest.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
I sin. I sin everyday. I fail to meet God’s standards. But God doesn’t leave me in my sin. He gave me a Savior. I don’t just live in sin because I have a Savior. I’m not content to let sin reign in my life. No WAY! Jesus came to save me from my sin. I want it OUT! When I put my faith in Jesus, I DIE. I die to my sin and the hold it once had on me. I say yes to new life. I say yes to taking up MY cross because of what Jesus has done for me.
Romans 6:1-7 says “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
I’ve got a Promised Land to come – HEAVEN. But I also live in the promised land now. I have righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. God’s Word is my manna, My daily bread. The Holy Spirit guides me into all truth and gives me everything I need to live a godly life. God’s kingdom comes and His will is done one earth as it is in Heaven when we seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first.
When Moses communicated with God His face shone! It shone so brightly that he had to wear a veil to cover his face.
2 Corinthians 3:16 through 18 says, “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
It only takes one sin to separate us from God! It only takes one sin to keep us from the promised land.
Today, I encourage you to look for the gospel when you read scripture. Even if you are reading in Leviticus, Numbers, Ezekiel, Song of Songs, or the book of Acts. At my church our pastors teach through books of the Bible and it seems like every Sunday, no matter what scripture passage we are studying, the message ALWAYS points to the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. The gospel is everything. JESUS is everything!
I also encourage you to acknowledge your sin and confess it to the Father. 1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Read some Biblically based historical Christian fiction. I love reading Biblical historical Christian fiction. It helps me to see scripture in a new light and connects passages of scripture and history for me in a way that makes the Bible even more alive to me. I recently read through the Out of Egypt series by Connilyn Cossette. You can check these books out at the Library:). This series was fun to read alongside the books of the Bible I’ve been reading.
Two other good series to read are The Lineage of Grace and Sons of Encouragement by Francine Rivers.
Finally, listen to the song “Only Jesus” that our 5-6 year olds did a dance to in our last year’s Lighthouse Dance Production of “Garden.”
