[0:00] The Word, so we're in Numbers chapter 9, I'm going to read verses 15 through Numbers 10 verse 10, and then we will pray. The Word of God says, Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony.
[0:18] And in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle until morning. So it was continuously, the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out.
[0:33] And in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp. At the command of the Lord, the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the Lord they would camp. As long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped.
[0:46] Even when the cloud lingered over the tabernacle for many days, the sons of Israel would keep the Lord's charge and not set out. If sometimes the cloud remained a few days over the tabernacle, according to the command of the Lord, they remained camped.
[0:59] Then according to the command of the Lord, they set out. If sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning, when the cloud was lifted in the morning, they would move out. Or if it remained in the daytime and at night, whenever the cloud was lifted, they would set out.
[1:13] Whether it was two days, or a month, or a year that the cloud lingered over the tabernacle, staying above it, the sons of Israel remained camped and did not set out. But when it was lifted, they did set out.
[1:25] At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out. They kept the Lord's charge according to the command of the Lord through Moses. The Lord spoke further to Moses, saying, Make yourself two trumpets of silver, of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for having the camps set out.
[1:45] When both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Yet if only one is blown, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel, shall assemble before you. But when you blow an alarm, the camps that are pitched on the east side shall set out.
[2:00] And when you blow an alarm the second time, the camps that are pitched on the south side shall set out. An alarm is to be blown for them to set out. When convening the assembly, however, you shall blow without sounding an alarm.
[2:12] The priestly sons of Aaron, moreover, shall blow the trumpets, and this shall be for a perpetual statute throughout your generations. When you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets that you may be remembered before the Lord your God and be saved from your enemies.
[2:29] Also on the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first day of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifice of your peace offerings, and they shall be a reminder of you before your God.
[2:43] I am the Lord your God. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you so much for this evening, and God, I thank you for every opportunity we have to get together around your word.
[2:58] And Lord, I pray as we have read it, now that you would speak. I pray, God, that even this evening, you would show us truths of you that would resonate through the rest of our lives for your glory.
[3:10] And Lord, that it would transform how we see you, how we serve you, and Lord, how we live our lives. We ask, O Lord, that it would be given completely to you, and Lord, that you would be magnified.
[3:23] And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. We see this portion of Scripture, which, as I said, is not written in chronological order, because this is after the completion of the tabernacle, and yet we are being told of how they marched through the wilderness, but in the book, chronologically, we have not even gotten to them leaving the Mount of the Lord yet.
[3:47] So they are yet to wilderness wonder, but yet we are reading of how they did it, because Moses is writing near the end of his life. He is looking back, historically, over how the Lord had led them, and how God had moved, and he is writing about how they moved throughout the wilderness here, because he is showing us that if they camped a year, or if they saved a few months, and we know that if they had not denied, or failed to go into the promised land, then there would have never been a time when God would have kept them in a place for a year, because it did not take them but a number of days to get to the edge of the promised land the first time.
[4:28] But Moses is looking back, and he is introducing for us how they obeyed God in this portion of their existence. And he is telling us this before it happens, because what we have in Numbers 10, verse 11, is they begin to march towards Kadesh Barnea, and that is the edge of the promised land.
[4:49] They begin their marching through the wilderness. And he is going to introduce for us here how they knew when to move, and how they moved. But there is this repeated phrase throughout it, according to the command of the Lord.
[5:03] Now the word command literally means mouth, according to the mouth of the Lord, what it is God is saying. So what I want us to see tonight is just to glean three things here, what it looks like to live according to the command of the Lord.
[5:17] What we see the nation doing in their obedience, even though we know much of their wilderness wandering is a result of disobedience, but what it looks like to live according to the command.
[5:30] What it looks like to live according to what God had clearly commanded them and was telling them. And we see this in particular as it pertains to their travels and how they move about.
[5:42] And this has application even to our own daily lives because if the wilderness is the place of sanctification, because the release from Egypt was the place of salvation, and the wilderness is a place of sanctification because it took God a moment to get them out of Egypt, and it took him 40 years to get Egypt out of them, then we, after accepting Christ, are in our wilderness wanderings of sanctification.
[6:11] He is maturing us and molding us and shaping us and forming us to become more like his image. And as Paul says, I'm not yet what I should be, but I press on towards the goal of the upward call.
[6:28] That is instantaneous salvation and progressive sanctification. And I, for one, am a very firm believer in that, and that God saves us in a moment, but he sanctifies.
[6:40] To sanctify means to set apart. When something is sanctified, it is set apart for holy service. He sanctifies us progressively. The longer we walk with him in that salvific relationship, the more of our lives he sets apart.
[6:56] The more of our being he sets apart until that day when we are completely redeemed and we are face to face with him. And we see what it looks like to live according to the command of the Lord or following his mouth or what it is he says in obedience.
[7:14] And we see it as it pertains to this. Number one, we see that it is a result of a presence manifested. It is a result of a presence that has been manifested among them.
[7:26] It says, Now on the day when the tabernacle was erected, there were two presence manifestations on that day. One of them was a presence that was concealed for only a few to see.
[7:38] As a matter of fact, it would have been a presence that was revealed for only one to see. And that would have been the high priest. That manifestation was the Shekinah glory. The day they erected the tabernacle, if you remember, they offered that sacrifice and the Shekinah glory of God filled the Holy of Holies.
[7:56] And we read in the book of Exodus, at the very end of the book of Exodus, that the glory of God so filled the tabernacle that the priests were not able to go in. Now, if you remember, per the construction of the tabernacle, if you were outside the tabernacle, there was this wall, this curtain of walls, that had no roof, it was just this high-walled fence.
[8:22] That's your bars and pillars and posts and all those things. And once you walked into that courtyard, there is the bronze altar, and then you also have the bronze, the water basin.
[8:33] And then you would go into the holy place, which would have been a pitched tent inside this walled tent. So you could have possibly seen the top of that, but that pitched tent was covered with two layers of covering, one to cover it and the other to waterproof it.
[8:50] It had curtains all around, and you could enter into that belt and go into the holy place, and there you had the table of showbread, you had the altar of incense, and you had the candle, the light that would be lit continuously.
[9:02] And then the inside of that was very ornate. Remember, it had purple and scarlet and all these blue colors and all these magnificent colors that were in there. And then you would go into the holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was, with the cherubim and the propitiation seat, the seat of propitiation above the Ark of the Covenant.
[9:21] Now, the Shekinah glory rests where the cherubim were, on the seat of propitiation. Now, seat of mercy, right?
[9:33] That's what that means, because Jesus is our mercy seat. He is that propitiation. So what we see here is the Shekinah glory manifestation of God was inside the inside of the tabernacle.
[9:48] So the only reason I'm saying that is the common man would not be able to see that. The high priest would go in one time a year. Now, it happened in such a manner that everyone knew it, but nobody would be able to see it.
[10:01] That was God filling his tabernacle, but it was closed off. The common man would not be able to see that. But the manifest presence of God that was made public was, it says, on the day that the tabernacle was erected, erected, the cloud covered the tabernacle.
[10:19] Now, this is not the Shekinah glory, because that word is never used here. This is just a representation of God saying, I am here, right?
[10:29] There's a big difference between that, because the cloud was visible for all to see. The Shekinah glory is that which made Moses' face radiate and glow. But this was a cloud that would cover it by day, and in the evening it was like the appearance over the tabernacle as fire.
[10:45] So this was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And what God was showing was manifesting his presence. Now, the priest knew he was present on the inside.
[10:57] What is amazing with this is that the public knew he was present on the outside. God wanted everyone to know he was there. And this is important to us, because God's presence is not just manifested to a select few.
[11:16] He has manifested himself to all, to whosoever will. If anyone ever wanted to really see if God was present, if he was there, if the presence of the Lord was still among them, all they would have to do would be glanced towards the tabernacle.
[11:31] And while they would see the tabernacle in all this splendor, what they would really see is the manifestation of God's presence above the tabernacle. And they could see it during the day, or they could see it during the night.
[11:42] Either way, they were always aware that he was among them. This is why when the camp camped, they all camped around the tabernacle so that it was in the center of them so that they would always know he literally was present in their midst.
[11:58] Now, that does not mean that God was only in that place, because God is omnipresent. He is present everywhere at the same time, right? But we do know that he is manifesting his presence in a very visible way here, much like, if you ever really want to start, there are some things that are biblical truths that are doctrinal, that theologically make a structure ahead.
[12:20] When Jesus became flesh, all right, I don't want to really just do this, and really just for the sake of doing it, but we can say it this way. When God dwelt among us, and we call him Emmanuel, Jesus became flesh, there was a particular place where Jesus was manifesting the presence of God.
[12:45] Let's just go, okay, when he's walking on the Sea of Galilee. As Jesus is walking across the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples are in the boat, and they see him, they are seeing the manifestation of the presence of God there, in Jesus.
[13:03] But at the same time, God is equally present everywhere else in the world as well. But there, he was revealing it to them.
[13:15] And this is exactly what's happening among the nation. God is everywhere present, but he is revealing it to them in a special way, and their living, their life, according to that, was based upon that manifestation, because when the cloud moved, they moved.
[13:33] When the pillar of fire moved, they moved. It says, according to the command of the Lord. So according to what God was saying, and God was saying it by his presence.
[13:46] As the cloud moved, they moved. As the fire moved, they moved. He said, well, that would be easy. I wish I had a cloud, or a bad day, a pillar of fire, or a bad night, but we have something even better, because we have the manifestation of God's presence from within us.
[14:01] Because the Bible says, Jesus told us, that I, and the Father, and the Spirit, will come, and make our tabernacle in you. And it is the very presence of God that is manifested from within us, as we have it revealed to us through the word of God that shows us as he moves, we move.
[14:25] We live in a greater day of manifested presence. The disciples saw it where they could handle Jesus and touch him and fill him, but yet his presence was limited to time and space.
[14:40] The nation of Israel saw it in a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire, but yet it was limited to time and space. Though he was present everywhere, now, today, every believer is indwelt with the presence of God.
[14:52] That is a promise we find running throughout the New Testament, and we see it in the reality that that manifestation, that manifestation is the determining factor in when we move and when we don't.
[15:08] You say, well, how do I know that? Henry Blackaby did a whole study on that, knowing and discerning the will of God, right? Knowing and discerning the will of God, and some of you went through that, and we understand, and that's a great study.
[15:19] Maybe we'll do it for those of us who have never went through it. We say, well, how did I do it? Well, his was pretty good. How do you do it? Through listening to what God is saying through his word, through his people, through his spirit, and through prayer, and through divine circumstances.
[15:34] All of a sudden, you begin to see the Lord is moving me, and the Lord is pulling me, and the Lord is stirring me. It's amazing when you, even going back to last night, when you talk around a group of pastors, and you talk to them, and you say, well, how did you know the Lord was leading you?
[15:48] And even though pastors have been led in different directions, it's amazing. You start hearing this recurring, I just knew. It's almost as if the cloud was being moved because the presence was leading them.
[16:01] So, living according to the command of the Lord is a result of presence manifested among us, and focusing on the one who is present there. Secondly, we live according to the command of the Lord when all plans are surrendered.
[16:17] This is a hard one. This is a hard one because it goes against our natural tendency. All plans are surrendered. The Bible, again, is rampant with this.
[16:27] We find in the book of Proverbs that the man plans his way, but the Lord ordains his steps. That man tends to have a focused plan. Man thinks he has things worked out, but it is really God who is in control of how things work.
[16:40] And we see this here because it says in verse 16, so it was continuously the cloud was covered by day and the appearance of fire by night. Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out.
[16:52] And in the place where the clouds settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp. We see two things. Number one, they were not in charge of when they would set out. It just says whenever. And they were not in charge of where they would stop.
[17:03] It says wherever. And it says, at the command of the Lord, the sons of Israel would set out. If it was long settled, as long as the clouds settled over the tabernacle, they remained camp. So if it was there a month, if it was there a year, they stayed there.
[17:16] It was not for any man to determine how long they would stay there. I am almost certain there were some places they camped, that some people said, this is a very nice place.
[17:27] I would like to stay here a long time. It seems to be there are a lot of springs by here. It seems to me that this is a pleasant place to live. It seems to me, as a matter of fact, there was a, you know, there were some, there were two and a half tribes that decided that one of the places they camped was a pretty nice place and they stayed there.
[17:42] That ended up causing problems because of later on when they went into the promised land, there was this divided thing. But what we see, and we're getting ahead of ourselves biblically there because that's all the way in the book of Joshua, but what we see is that they were not in charge of when they would leave and where they would stop.
[18:00] As a matter of fact, it says if it stayed the evening and the night and set up the next morning, they would leave the next morning. If it stayed the day and the evening and set up at night, they would leave at night.
[18:11] He left whenever the manifested presence of God left. That's why it's a pillar of fire, but I'm not going to say, okay, it's time to walk eight nights. And they would leave.
[18:22] It was not for any to determine or to grumble, even though they did. The mixed multitude among them did grumble or to say, that's not how I want it done.
[18:37] Because to live according to the command of the Lord was to live a life of all plans surrendered. Now, wherever they stopped, think about it, if you lived somewhere a year, even camping there, you were pretty established.
[18:54] You were set up. You knew the terrain pretty well. And they would have to prepare as if they were going to stay, but they would have to be ready as if they were going to leave.
[19:06] So they had to, at the same time, be living in preparation and be willing to live with contentment. I am ready to move when he moves, but I am content to stay as long as he stays.
[19:23] And this is something that man has often struggled with. It is living open-handedly to say, if God allows me to stay here, I will stay.
[19:34] If God calls me to leave, I will leave. I am at the same moment prepared to stay. I am content where I'm at, but I'm also prepared to leave. I am ready to obey his calling.
[19:46] Because even the book of James, in case we think this is an Old Testament principle, even the book of James says, let us not say that we will stay here a year and then today and tomorrow we'll go there and do business here.
[19:59] It says, don't do that. Let us say, if the Lord wills. It is living a life of surrender ambitions and surrender plans.
[20:10] Now that's a hard thing to do. It's a very hard thing to do. But it is a very necessary thing to do. Because sometimes God calls us to be still. Sometimes God calls us to move.
[20:23] And we see this, that to live according to the command of the Lord is to be those who live with all plans, surrendered. It doesn't say don't make plans. It says, leaving all plans surrendered.
[20:38] Because we are to be wise. We are to be wise. We are to be, you know, Scripture speaks of that in the book of Proverbs. It speaks of that in the New Testament as well.
[20:49] We are to sit down and consider things and to think through things. It says, a wise man leaves a heritage to his children's children. And all these things, this planning and preparation, it goes into all those events.
[21:00] We are to be wise, but we ought to live. Surrender does not mean sacrificed, right? Surrender just means open-handed. Lord, this is how I'm living.
[21:13] I'm going to plan as if I'm staying, but I'm going to be prepared as if you're leading. now I'll go ahead and tell you. That's how I approach ministry.
[21:25] I long, whether or not you want me to be here or not, I long to retire from this pastorate which I currently have. And I don't plan on retiring until I'm really, really, really, really, really old.
[21:40] That's just me, okay? I'm one of those guys, most pastors never retire. And every retired pastor I have ever found, they are pastoring again. So, most pastors never really retire.
[21:52] And my desire is to have a long-tenured, long-term pastorate. That is just what I feel like God has put upon my heart and burdened me with and shown me the benefits of that because it just takes that long.
[22:06] It takes seven years for a pastor to know his congregation. I've only been here five years, right? So, it takes seven years for a pastor to really know his congregation. It's only after year seven that you become effective they tell you in the ministry and your most effective years are usually from years 12 to plus.
[22:22] So, however long you want to go. You're in the fruit of your labor at that time. My desire is to have a very long-tenured pastorate where I'm currently at. That's my plan.
[22:35] But, in surrendered living, I also have to say if the Lord wills. because if he was to tell me to leave, then it would be a great disservice for you if I stayed.
[22:52] But, we ought to all live our lives that way. Now, as soon as I say that somebody goes, he's thinking about leaving. No, I'm not. I am not. I just like to be honest. Okay?
[23:03] I like to be honest. That is something that we need to do is say, this, oh God, and by the way, I really feel like that's what God has. I have no ambitions whatsoever because you're stuck with me.
[23:17] Okay? But, this is just it. We say, if the Lord wills, I will stay. And, that's how we live our lives on every level because we can have our plans but they need to be surrendered plans according to his leading.
[23:34] Third and finally, we see, not only if we live according to his command that it is a result of his presence which has been manifested is also a result of the plans which have been surrendered, we get into chapter 10 here and we see that it is a perpetual or an ongoing reminder.
[23:50] It is a perpetual or ongoing reminder. The Lord commands Moses to construct or he tells them to make for yourself two trumpets of silver.
[24:00] According to the stones or the images we have carved in stones and the coins of that day, these were probably long tubed trumpets, single trumpets with a flare at the end. It says, make for yourselves two trumpets of silver of hammered work.
[24:14] You shall make them and you shall use them for summoning the congregation for having the camp set out. So here we see these trumpets have just this plethora of uses when they blow both trumpets but don't sound alarm.
[24:26] It's a summoning of the congregation to meet Moses at the tent of meeting. That's like Moses has come out of the tent of meeting. God has given him a new command so they blow the trumpets and everybody comes. If one trumpet is sounded then just the leaders were to be summoned to come to Moses.
[24:40] If two trumpets were sounded with an alarm then the tribe that was on the east was to set out first and then when it was blown the second time the tribe that was on the south was to set out next and we could just really get from the passage not that he intentionally left them out but we kind of deroged this that they would sound the blast the third time and the tribe to the west would set out after that and then they would sound it the fourth time and the tribe to the north would set out.
[25:03] That's how they would go, right? They would kind of go clockwise out of the camp and they would follow the tabernacle and they would be there as God was leading them the Ark of the Covenant ahead of them so we see that the trumpet blast were to summon the people and the trumpet blast was to set out the people because hey the clouds moving everybody pay attention, right?
[25:20] And then when they were to get into the promised land they were to sound the alarm when they were prepared to go to battle and then they were to sound the horns when it was the first of their months that is the new year they were to blow the trumpets whenever it was time for them to have a festival they were to blow the trumpets whenever it was a celebration they were always blowing the trumpets why?
[25:41] Because God was reminding them of who they were and who he was he didn't want them to forget he said when you're getting ready to go out to battle blow the trumpets so that you may be remembered before the Lord but also that you may remember the Lord who goes before you when you offer your sacrifices and you're at the festivals you're not just going through the motions sound the trumpets remember who this is going to at the beginning of the new year sound the trumpets because you need to be reminded I am the Lord your God and you are my people living according to the command of the Lord has this ongoing reminder of whose we are and who we are that is who it is we are serving and why we are doing the things we do and he gives them these trumpets to do that to call the people back to attention it is good that we have those things in our life those things that would call us back that would get our attention and remind us again of why we do the things we do of why we go through the motions we go through and this is exactly what God is commanding his people to do now they are about to sound the alarm and they are about to leave but each time the alarm sounded they would know something of the Lord is happening either he has got a word for them and he is calling them to hear it he is leading them and he is calling them to follow he is delivering them from the adversaries that are opposing them he is being he is receiving their sacrifices because they are putting them there he has brought them into a new year and they are celebrating it but each and every time the horn blew they were reminded that it was because of something the Lord was doing among them and only Aaron and his sons could sound the trumpets because this was a holy exercise this was an exercise of calling God's people back to himself and reminding them reminding them of who they were
[27:54] I remember when we were I went with another pastor the first time I ever went and I wish I could remember the pastor that was preaching his name the first time I ever went to the Cove the Billy Graham training center I went there for what Billy Graham used to call the school of evangelism it was great I don't even know if they offer the school of evangelism anymore brother Chad Conn and I went there so as far as pastors go if you've never traveled with a group of pastors that's one thing but if you've never traveled with a Pentecostal pastor you've really never traveled so I went to the Cove to the school of evangelism with the Pentecostal pastor had a great time we were there but I remember the first night we were there we were sitting there and it was just preaching and I wish I could remember the pastor's name and I don't even have the quote written down in one of my Bibles but I lost his name his name was Bishop something from Louisiana he's African American pastor down there and he said something that just stuck with me and has stuck with me ever since and that has probably been 10 years ago or so and he said when a trumpet is needed a flute just won't do when God needs to call us back to his attention and to remind us of who we are it needs to be loud
[29:20] I mean this morning we heard a flute and a trumpet I love both of them I enjoy when brother Jamie quits playing the trumpet for a moment and you can hear the flute come in and it's subtleness right and then he comes back in and he pairs it together and you see them coming together but when he said that when a trumpet is needed a flute won't do and God's telling them sound that alarm remember who you are remember who I am remember why you do the things you do and do it on a perpetual ongoing basis because we want to live according to the command of the Lord let's pray God I thank you so much for this evening Lord we thank you for every opportunity we have to get in your word Lord we thank you for the truths that it contains and pray that it would penetrate our hearts and mouths and we ask it all in Christ's name Amen so come in in Christ's name so come in in Christ's name so come in in Christ's name so come in and pray that so come in in Christ's name so come in and pray that in Christ's name so come in and pray that in Christ's name so come in in Christ's name so come in and pray that in Christ's name so come in so come in and pray so come in and pray that so come in
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