Word of Salvation – October 2013

 

Numbers 26 – SECOND CENSUS: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

By Rev. John Westendorp

(Sermon 26 in a series on Numbers)

Scripture Reading: Numbers 26:1-14, 51-56, 62-65.

Singing: Book of Worship 155 / 358 / 91 / 265

 

Introd: Why do we bother with genealogies… those long lists of names in your family tree?

A genealogy certainly doesn’t make for exciting bed-time reading.

But they are useful aren’t they? When you’re trying to trace your family history.

Many Aussies can trace their ancestry back to the convicts. And they take pride in that.
Hey, their ancestors were chosen to come here by the best judges in England.
A family in my previous church were excited to find some blue blood in their family line.
They discovered that a third cousin twice removed had been a baron.

Numbers 26 is a little like a family tree… lots of real people are mentioned.
And it’s not just tribes that are listed but also clans… family groupings.
It’s a reminder that we are not just isolated individuals – we belong to something bigger.
To families… to groups of families… as well as to a nation.
And today we’ll pick up on some lessons from Israel’s family tree.

If you don’t get wildly excited about a family tree you’ll be even less excited about a census.
Here in Australia we have a census every five years. That’s not exciting but, again, it is useful.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics makes available all kinds of information from a census.
We need that census information to plan for the future.
In the church we are required every year to report details of our membership.
That enables our denomination to make some plans for the future.
Numbers 26 is also a census that enabled Israel to plan for its future.

A] A CENSUS OF CHANGE.

1. We need to understand that Numbers begins with a census and it ends with a census.

Twice in this book the people are counted… that’s why it’s called Numbers.

The first time was in chapter 2 as the people were about to leave Mt Sinai and take the Promised Land.

But we know it all went horribly wrong… they rebelled and refused to go into Canaan.
Instead they wandered 40 years in the wilderness.
But now their journey is almost over and they’re once again at the borders of Canaan.
And so once again Moses is ordered to count the people.
That’s the context for this census and this family tree here at the end of the book of Numbers.

Please keep that in mind. Who of you here are forty years old… or younger?
Okay! If you had been there you would not have remembered the previous census.
So this is a census of change.
There have been almost four decades; a lifetime for those of you who are forty or under.
That means that there were lots of people who were no longer there.
They were counted in the first census but not in this second census.

That’s a reality check for us. It’s sobering. It reminds us that we are not going to be here forever.
When I came back to Toowoomba after 13 years away lots of people were no longer here.
And in Numbers 26 the time gap is three times as long as that.

What is particularly sobering is that we ourselves are part of that process of time moving on.

Charles Spurgeon said: We don’t sit as spectators watching this passing of time like a procession.
No, we’re in the procession… we’re part of the process.

So, please get used to it brothers and sisters!

2. The change here is actually even more dramatic than that.

At this census there is a whole new generation being counted. The text is very clear about that.
It says that none of those of the previous generation were there to be counted.
It even repeats that for emphasis.
Vs.64: But among these there was not a man of those who were numbered
by Moses and Aaron at Sinai.
Vs.65: And not a man was left of them except Caleb the son of Jephuneh
and Joshua the son of Nun.

So imagine that they got out the lists from the last census… the one from Number 2 at Sinai.
And imagine that they’d then had a roll-call.
Only two men, Caleb and Joshua, could have answered that roll call from the first census.
That is sobering. Only two out of 603 thousand were still there for the second census.

This is a whole new generation… and we see that too in that there has been a change in leadership.
It is now Eleazar who is involved, not Aaron.
Aaron has died and his high-priestly role has been taken over by Eleazar his son.
And even Moses will not be there much longer – this is one of his last tasks.

Those in leadership too die.
It’s 35 years ago that I began my work of pastoral ministry in a small church with four elders.
Of the five of us there are only two of us still alive.
Wait another 35 years and someone will be saying something similar about our Session here.

This change is pervasive. It is not only among the lowliest of the people and from the smallest tribes.
It is right across the board – also in the leadership. This is a whole new generation.
And if Jesus delays His return that will happen here in this church.
Your children and grand-children may be counted as members of this church but you will not.

3. At the same time we also need to add that this census of change was also a change for the better.

The previous generation had not been a generation of faith.
In fact a key themes of Numbers is that a whole generation died because of unbelief.
They constantly grumbled and rebelled against Moses and against the Lord.
And when it came to the crunch they refused to go in and take the Promised land.
And the result is that they died in their fear of unbelief.

I don’t want to excuse the unbelief and rebellion of that generation but I can understand it.
That generation counted at Sinai had been enslaved in Egypt.
They had spent their whole life making mud bricks and doing building projects for Pharaoh.
They were a nation that had felt the whiplash of their taskmasters.
Oppressed and down-trodden… and with their children killed off as they were born.

I can imagine that this had hardened them… and predisposed them to grumbling.
A generation made tough and bitter by their experiences in Egypt.
But their lack of faith meant that none of them were there to be counted in Numbers 26.
The last of that generation died in the plague God sent in the previous chapter.

In contrast this new generation is a generation of faith. Okay… they are certainly not perfect.
The events of the previous chapter made that quite clear.
As I read it some of the younger generation also got caught up in the sin of Baal-Peor.

But for 40 years God had been dealing with His people and disciplining them.
So we now have a new generation… a generation of faith… a generation made ready
not for another 40 years of wilderness wandering but ready for conquest and battle.

B] A CENSUS OF CONTINUITY.

1. If this census speaks to us of change it also speaks to us of continuity.

What we have in Numbers 26 is not a totally new and different nation.

This census also pictures for us, in a very strong way, the survival of the nation.

And in a way that is quite surprising.
This book of Numbers does not show Israel in a very good light.
Over and over Israel grumble and gripe… they rebel against God and they disobey Him.
And on more than one occasion the Lord has threatened to wipe them out and to start afresh.

But this census shows us that the nation survives… despite its sin.
That’s why there is continuity in these verses.
Verse 4: These were the people who came out of Egypt.
These people were the heirs of the promises made to Abraham.

So on the one hand we have a totally new generation.

On the other hand this generation shared the same history of salvation.
This was still the nation God rescued out of Egypt. There is continuity.
The Israel that Pharaoh oppressed is the same Israel that Balak wanted to curse.

Let me again quote Charles Spurgeon. He said: “The nation is living even though a nation has died.”

Despite this being a new generation there is continuity. There is a shared history.

We need to see that in the church today… for us too there is continuity.
One of the tragedies of the modern church is that it has little sense of sharing the past.
Too many churches act as if the church and Christianity began with us.
And so everything is up for grabs… and everything has to be changed.
So we discard all the traditions and all the practices of the past…
and so often people end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

2. Numbers 26 is written in such a way as to encourage this new generation to learn from the past.

IOW – to take notice of that continuity and learn from history. And we too need that reminder.

Too often the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history

So there are some things that the Lord specifically draws attention to in this chapter.
There are warnings from God. The word ‘warning’ is specifically mentioned in verse 10.
We are called to learn from history so as not to make the same mistakes.
That’s why the example of Korah, Dathan and Abiram’s rebellion is mentioned in verses 9 to 11.
Here is a powerful lesson from history: Don’t mess with God!

But continuity with the past and history is not only to warn us… it is also to encourage us.
We didn’t read the whole chapter this morning – we skipped the counting of Judah.
When Moses gets to Judah’s family tree and the census figures for Judah, Moses pauses.
And he digresses a little and talks about Judah’s sons Er and Onan in verse19.
They were wicked men whom the Lord killed.

So two of Judah’s three sons died in Canaan.
He had two other sons (twins) who came out of an incestuous relationship.
And yet from that small and sinful beginning grew this huge tribe of Judah.
What an encouragement.
By the grace of God Israel’s largest tribe grew from those sinful and humble beginnings.

So we see in this census that this new generation is the same people with the same shared history.

And they are called to learn from history. To be warned by history. To be encouraged by its history.

3. There is continuity also in another way – in that the outcome in the census is almost identical overall.

The overall figures are almost the same. Just a very small decrease of less than two thousand.

In one way that is a disappointing outcome of this census.
To put it negatively: there had been no growth… in fact a very small decline.
In contrast, in Egypt Israel’s numbers had increased at a rapid rate.
We’d say they had multiplied like rabbits. Much to the concern of Pharaoh.
But now forty years… and there has actually been a decrease. That’s disappointing.

But let’s look at it from another angle… from the perspective of Israel’s sin and God’s judgment.
In the recent plague in chapter 25, some 24 thousand Israelites died.
(Particularly Simeon was decimated – their tribe was more than halved.)
In the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram some 15 thousand had died.
Thousands more died when they despised the manna and when God then sent fiery snakes.

So in many ways it is a miracle that there were not far less people in this second census.
God has graciously kept the numbers of the nation intact despite the sad losses due to sin.

So there is continuity in that we still have a very similar crowd of people.
The same mighty army ready to conquer and inherit Canaan.
And there are many other things that will also be the same.
– Their soldiers will rally around the same tribal standards as they enter Canaan.
– The census is taken for the same dual purpose.
First to plan and organise the army in readiness for the conquest of Canaan.
Second so as to fairly divide the land amongst the people tribe by tribe.

C] GOD’S FAITHFULNESS.

1. All of this brings home to us God’s utter reliability and faithfulness.

God is faithful and reliable – first of all in that His judgments will take place.

When Israel failed to take up the call to enter the land the first time God judged their unbelief.
He told them that all those 20 years old and up would die in the wilderness.

I can imagine the younger and stronger people thinking they might still make it.
Maybe many of them were younger than Joshua and Caleb.
Perhaps even a year earlier they were hopeful that they might still enter Canaan.
Those who were healthy and vigorous made it to 39 years but no one past the fortieth.
It happened just as God said… His Word is always reliable… also His Word of judgment.

When I think about those forty years I imagine they were horrendous years.
I did some calculations.
Over those 38 years there would been an average of 85 funerals per day.
Israel left behind in the wilderness one long trail of the graves of their dead.
It also meant that in all Israel there was not a man who got to 60 years of age.

God is faithful to His Word. The grass withers, the flower falls but the Word of God stands forever.
And we find here in this census the proof of God’s anger.
The evidence that when God makes threats He means business.
Just remember that only 2 out of 603 thousand survived those 40 years.

That means today you and I need to take God’s threats of judgment seriously. Often we don’t.
For example, today even among Christians belief in hell has fallen on hard times.
“Surely”, people say, “a good and gracious God will not condemn people to an eternity in hell.”
That’s like those Israelites saying: surely God wouldn’t let me die in this wilderness.
No! God is faithful – first of all faithful to His own Word – also His Word of judgment.

2. God’s faithfulness and reliability is also seen though in positive ways.

What is especially encouraging is that God has now brought these people to this point of time.

Okay… the fulfilment of God’s promise was delayed… and it was delayed almost forty years.
Human unbelief and hardheartedness resulted in forty wasted years.
But a delay is not the same as a cancellation.
God didn’t renege on His promise to Abraham to give his descendants the land.
So even though the fulfilment of that promise is delayed it is now about to be fulfilled.

The wonderful thing about the book of Numbers is that God never withdraws His love from Israel.
It’s true that He disciplines them.
But God’s faithfulness continues despite their sin.
And that ought to encourage us.

In a sense this census is reminding us that what God begins He finishes.
I often have unfinished projects lying around in my shed… some in my study too.
I have good intentions to finish them but I know some of them will never get finished.
In fact there are times when I just have to have a clean-up of unfinished projects.

Well, God never leaves His work half finished the way we sometimes do.
And that is a wonderful encouragement for us.
What God began with Israel He brought to completion.

Today we have the same promise. Paul says to the Philippians:
I am confident that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. (Phil.16)
That’s why we as Reformies believe in the Perseverance of the Saints.
Because – as we see in this chapter – what God begins God also finishes.

3. There is one final lesson about God’s love and faithfulness in Numbers 26.

We see here that the next generation is just as precious to God as the previous one.

Each new generation matters to the Lord.

And here too – just as in the first census in Numbers 2 every individual is counted.
It highlights that God’s people are not just a faceless mob.
Each individual is counted… and counted to be set apart for service to the Lord.

Numbers 26 is a wonderful picture of the grace of God.
God deals with a generation that forfeited the right to be called God’s people.
God disciplined a faithless and rebellious people under the sentence of death.
But He works with their children to make them into the people who will inherit the land.

God didn’t value the nation any less because of the sins of the last 38 years.
Instead He listed them in the census and He called them to serve Him.

Today for us there is a more important census for us… a place where your name ought to be listed.
And that is in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
It’s listed there, if by faith you look to Jesus Christ alone for your salvation.
And if it’s listed there that is not just to bless you with life everlasting in God’s Promised Land.
It is also so that you will take up the Armour of God and live to serve Him.

These people in Numbers 26 were recorded in the census…
not just to know that they would inherit part of the promised Land…
it was also in order to serve in Joshua’s army in the battles of conquest.
We are in the Lambs Book of Life for a purpose:
Yes… to inherit the wonderful new creation that is awaiting us.
But also to again go into this new week and live our lives to His glory and praise. Amen