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Introduction to Numbers and the Census of Families 0:09 Good morning! Welcome to Stand on the Word. Thanks for joining this morning. You're doing great on this journey. You know, we are now in our fourth book of the Bible. This is the0:21 fourth book of the Pentateuch, which is Greek for 5 books, 5 scrolls, referring to the Torah, the book of the law, the 5 books of the law. Alright. Today we're going to look at Numbers, chapters0:33 1 through 3, verse 52. The children of Israel shall pitch their tents, everyone by his own camp, everyone by his own standard, according to their armies. Now let's start with a little background on the book.0:45 The name Numbers, again, it comes from the Greek, which, you know, you you could say that it adds up, that it would be called Numbers because the book begins with a census and0:57 it ends with a census of the people. Now the Hebrew title is different, as we've seen before. The Hebrew, books take their name from the first few words of the, of1:09 the book. And here, the first few words that they take the name of the book from is in the wilderness, which quite frankly is, is more descriptive of this, the1:21 book that covers 39 years of their journey in the wilderness. Alright. Moses is the author. The period covered in Numbers begins a month after the account1:32 of Exodus ends. Numbers begins 1 year, 1 month after Israel leaves Egypt and the book continues until they arrive, to the Promised1:44 Land in Canaan. Now, the book's overarching theme is that God's people must walk by faith, trusting and obeying God, if they are to experience the promises of1:56 God, the abundant life. Now this first part, quite frankly to me, is fascinating and provides tremendous insight into God's design for society. Now there's a2:08 lot we could mine out of these few chapters, you know, the numbers, the census, and all that, but I want to focus on kind of 1 aspect. So again, I'm leading us on a journey kind of pointing out is2:20 like see that waterfall behind me? Isn't that beautiful? I'm the travel guide, the tour guide here, the trail leader just pointing out some things. The Holy Spirit is the 1 who teaches. So this is why I2:32 encourage you to read these entire passages. If you don't have enough time to read and do the video, turn off the video, read the Bible. The Bible is the most important aspect2:44 of this journey and it's the Holy Spirit who's teaching. And so every time you open the Word, you need to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you the truth of his word. He is our teacher. That's why2:55 Jesus said, I'm sending him, that he'll he'll reveal to you. He'll lead you into all understanding of the truth. So that is the most important. Verse 1, chapter 1, Now the Lord spoke to Moses in3:07 the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of meeting on the first day of the second month in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, take a census of all the congregation of the children of3:19 Israel by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male individually, from 20 years old and above,3:30 who are able to go to war in Israel. You and Aaron shall number them by their armies. Now, I'm going to come back to this, but I want to draw your attention to the word3:42 armies, Shavah, which means host, army. It connotates battle. It is a military term. This is how their families were described. Now hold on to this because we're going to come back to it in a moment.3:54 Verse 4. And with you there shall be a man from every tribe, each 1 of the head of the father's house. Drop down to verse 17. Then Moses and Aaron took these men who had been mentioned by name, and they assembled4:06 all the congregation together on the first day of the second month, and they recited their ancestries by families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names from 20 years old and above4:18 each 1 individually. And the Lord as the Lord commanded Moses, so He numbered them in the wilderness of Sinai. What else did you notice here? Moses assembled the4:30 people and they were registered individually by family, by their ancestry. They knew who they were. They they knew what family they belonged to. This was a part of their identity.4:42 Now there was a recent, survey by Ancestry that found that half of Americans can name only 1 or none of their great grandparents. I mean,4:54 in just a few generations our connection to family history is fading. And in these these families, in fact, even today, Jewish families know their lineage, they know their ancestry. Now at the5:06 same time, the U. S. Census Bureau reports that roughly 1 in 4 children in America, that's about 18 to 19000000, live in a home without their biological father present. You know, when5:18 identity is disconnected from family, when you lose your sense of who you are and who you belong to, young people are often left trying to figure out who they are on their own. And the consequences show up5:30 all across society. I mean, research on youth outcomes consistently find that about 90 percent of homeless and runaway children come from father absent homes. Around 605:42 percent of youth suicides involve children who grew up without a father. And an overwhelming majority of youth in correctional facilities comes from come from families without fathers in the home.5:54 These statistics are not merely numbers. They represent lives searching for stability, belonging, and identity. You know, not only that,6:06 each 1 of those stories, each 1 of those lives weakened becomes a weak link in society as a whole. I mean, not that it is needed, but6:18 when you look at all of that data that's out there, and there's plenty of it, it validates God's design. God's design for the family. Identity and family go hand in hand. When the family6:30 is weakened, the effects ripple outward to communities, institutions, and to the nation itself. And that's why, you know, it begins,6:42 frankly, I know this, some will dismiss this, but this is the, this has been the enemy, our spiritual enemy saying this. Fathers are important. Fathers need to be the spiritual heads of their home.6:54 They need to be in home. It's not just having children. It is raising them to know and love the Lord. This idea of armies, I mean, just recall, I mentioned this before7:07 in Exodus chapter 12, the Passovers. The Passover was instituted by family, and when they came out of Egypt they were called by their armies. The family is the central element,7:19 the main building block of society. Alright, look at verse 52, The children of Israel shall pitch their tents, everyone by his own camp, everyone by his own standard, according to their7:31 armies. Now, what would happen? What would have happened without the family? Well, there would have been no nation. Let me think about that for a moment. If you could not form a nation without the7:42 foundation of a family, which is how Israel was founded, how do you sustain? How do you sustain a nation without the foundation of the family? The answer is you don't. Now7:54 you can prop it up, which our government has done, but that comes at a tremendous price. That's why we have a national debt of about 38000000000000 dollars There's no Look, money can't replace mom8:06 and dollars can't substitute for dad. We need strong families if we're going to have a strong society. Now drop down to chapter 2 and let's explore this a bit more. Verse 1, And the Lord spoke toCamp Organization and the Tabernacle at the Center 8:18 Moses and Aaron, saying, 'Every 1 of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard beside the emblem of his father's house. They shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting.' Now the whole camp, and8:29 this is 1 of the things that speaks to the organization of how were they able to move so many people through the wilderness, is they were organized by family. And they, every family had their own banner,8:42 And the father, the father's house had an emblem. These were recognized and they were used to organize and to rally the people. Their neighborhoods, if you were, were by family.8:54 And as you continue reading in chapter 3, we see that the order of where they were to be set up, where they were to set up camp, how they were to break camp was provided by God in detail.9:06 Everything in their society, their community, which is, again, it was estimated between 2 and 2 and a half million people, was organized by family. That's why they didn't have chaos. They9:18 were organized by family. And look at what was at the center of the community. Look at verse 3 chapter 2. On the east side toward the rising of the sun, those of the standard of the forces with9:30 Judah show camp according to their armies. East of what side? So everything is wrote east, west, north, south. The tabernacle. The tabernacle was in the9:41 center of this massive camp of 2000000 people. Everything was ordered around the presence of God. Wow. I mean, the presence of God was in the middle9:53 of the community, protected by the armies and the families against the hostile forces. Now, do you see where this is going? The family today is the defense against the hostile10:05 spiritual forces that want to take our children captive. The family is to protect and preserve the presence of God. We cannot outsource the10:17 preservation of the presence of God in our home to the church. The church teaches and reinforces what must start in the home, in the family. You know, it reminds10:29 me of the worship song that that, you might recall the the lyrics of this, Jesus at the center. Jesus is at the center of it all. Jesus at the center of it all. From the beginning to the end, it will always10:41 be it will always be you, Jesus. Now before we continue to chapter 3, I want to address very quickly the census, which is a focus of some of the biblicalDefending the Census and Levites' Role 10:53 critics. Now the critics say that this was too many people. Now there were when we looked through the census, there were 603555 males.11:04 Now as I mentioned earlier, this would, be a population estimated to be somewhere between 2 and 2500000.0. Now how could you move that many people through the11:16 desert? You know, others claim that the evidence suggests the entire population of Canaan at the time was only about 3000000. Well, I believe we should take the numbers at face value. I11:28 mean, there was organization, there was structure, there was the ability to do that. And I remember this: A God who could bring plagues on the most advanced society at the time11:40 and bring it to ruin, the God who could bring the children of Israel across the Red Sea on dry land, the God who fed people, fed his children every day with bread from heaven, The11:51 God who sent his Son to die for the sins of the world that he might redeem us for all of eternity? Could he not bring a discontent band of travelers through the wilderness for 40 years? I think the12:03 answer is yes. Now looking now at, the rest of chapter 3, we have the census of the Levites, which was, separate because they were a tithe of the nation12:15 to God, all 22000 of them. Look at verse 12 chapter 3. Now behold, I myself have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every firstborn who opens the womb12:27 among the children of Israel. Therefore, the Levites shall be mine. But once again, we see that they were counted by family within the tribe of Levi. Look at, verses 17 through12:38 38. Their duties pertaining to the tabernacle were organized. How? By family. There's no escaping the reality of God's design for a healthy,12:51 vibrant society with families. I mean, that's the source of strength. It's the source of identity. And we see it right here in God's design for a nation.13:03 You know, history and today's headline reveal that this universal truth, it is inescapable. And a nation denies it or ignores it to its13:15 own peril. Father, we thank you for this day and your blessings, and I thank you for all that are on this journey. May you strengthen them, strengthen their families, encourage them, Lord. And and, Lord,13:27 begin to rebuild our nation with an understanding of the fundamental nature of the family centered around your presence. And so, Lord, we continue to pray for the Holy Spirit to lead us on this journey, opening our eyes13:39 and helping us to understand the truth of your word. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright. Have a great day, and thanks for joining us on this journey. Until next time, keep standing13:51 on the word.13:53 Today's study comes from the stand on the word Bible Reading Plan available for free at frc dot org slash bible. By following along in just a few minutes a day, you14:05 can read through the entire Bible in just 2 years. Learn more and request the free reading guide at frc dot org slash bible.In this video 0:00 Introduction to Numbers and the Census of Families8:10 Camp Organization and the Tabernacle at the Center10:44 Defending the Census and Levites' Role
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