Numbers (Part 1)
Bible Study Time 1-13-08
(James Roberts from 1-17-99)
Bible Study Time 1-13-08
(James Roberts from 1-17-99)
In our previous lessons in our journey through the scriptures, we have been looking at a survey of the books of Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus, and we’re ready now for our study on the book of Numbers. These books are so very vital to our understanding of the Old Testament that I think it’s good for us today to take a short break and review some of those very important things that we have seen in those first three books of the Bible.
All of the things that we see in the Old Testament really have their foundation right here in these first five books of the Bible. In the book of Genesis, we find the book of beginnings. In the very first statement, we find a very simple and concise statement of how God created the heavens and the earth. It says:
Genesis 1:1 (KJ2000)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Man might have his speculations and theories of the big bang and all of those other kinds of things, but here in Genesis 1:1, we have a firsthand account of One who was there, who has revealed how He did it.
Genesis 1:1 (KJ2000)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This is a very simple statement that must be believed.
We also find in Genesis that God created the first man. Again, man has all kinds of speculations about the origin of man and the origin of the various families, and these theories of evolution have such a tremendous effect on our lives and on our psychology today.
According to the evolutionary theory, man started out as a one-celled amoeba in a slimy, primeval ocean, but then somehow that little one-celled amoeba evolved to the point that it could climb out onto the dry land and then evolved into the magnificent moral creature that man is today. Well, that’s all just the speculation of man.
In the book of Genesis, we find the beginning of the human family. God said:
Genesis 1:26 (KJ2000)
26 . . . Let us make man in our image . . .
So He:
Genesis 2:7 (KJ2000)
7 . . . formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
He saw that it was not good for man to live alone, so He created a woman to be a helper for him. That woman was called Eve because she was the mother of all living. So here we have the first parents, and we see clearly that they both came from the very creative hand of God.
If we’re going to believe in the second man, the Lord from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, God’s own Son, who came into this world to die for our sins, it’s very important that we believe also in the Genesis account of the creation and the origin of man. After all, the very same book that tells us about Jesus Christ also tells us about the true origin of man and of the universe.
In I Corinthians 15, Paul refers back to Adam and says:
1 Corinthians 15:47 (KJ2000)
47 The first man is of the earth, made of dust . . .
Now if Adam was in fact the first man then there is no room for men who were prehistoric. If there were men before Adam, then Adam was not the first man. But Paul confirms the Genesis account of creation by calling Adam the first man. There were no men on the earth before Adam.
Adam was created by God, and Eve was created by God, and they were the first parents. Therefore, all of us can trace or genealogy back to Adam, himself. And just as God created Adam in His image and in His likeness, so all of us are born with Adam’s likeness.
The book of Genesis tells us that Adam introduced sin into the human race when he and his wife were beguiled by Satan. They rebelled against God, and they ate of the forbidden fruit. God had said:
Genesis 2:17 (KJ2000)
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.
When they ate, they died spiritually. According to Romans, Chapter 6:
Romans 6:23 (KJ2000)
23 . . . the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5 tells us that:
Romans 5:12 (KJ2000)
12 . . . by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men . . .
One of the reasons that man wants to get rid of the historic Adam is that it would do away with the origin of sin in the human family. If you can do away with the truth concerning the original sin of Adam and Eve, then you can also do away with John 3:16. John says:
John 3:16 (KJ2000)
16 . . . God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
In Genesis, however, we not only see the origin of the sin problem, but we also see God’s promise of the Redeemer. God said to the serpent:
Genesis 3:15 (KJ2000)
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
The Lord Jesus Christ came as the Seed of the woman with no earthly father. Though He was born of a woman, God was His Father. When Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, He wounded Satan with a deadly wound which provides deliverance from the dominion of Satan for all who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
As we move on through Genesis, we see the first catastrophe on the earth. During the time of Noah, God destroyed with a great flood the heavens and the earth that had existed from the time of the creation. The heavens and the earth that we see today are the result of that great flood.
After the flood, God dealt with Noah and his descendants, but once again sin became so prevalent that God chose to deal exclusively with one man and his descendants. That man, of course, was Abraham.
God gave Abraham certain promises that form the basis for God’s dealings with man throughout the rest of the Old Testament. All of the promises that were made to Abraham will someday be fulfilled when Jesus Christ returns to the earth at His second coming.
At the close of the book of Genesis, we find Abraham’s descendants down in Egypt where they were known as the children of Israel. They had grown into a very large ethnic group, and the Egyptians had made them their slaves. In Exodus, we see God sending Moses back to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel.
God demonstrated His mighty power to the Egyptians and to the nation of Israel through various judgments. The greatest of these judgments was the last, and it was a judgment in which God killed all of the firstborn sons throughout the land. Only those families who had the blood of the Passover lamb applied to the doorpost were spared.
This stands as a great illustration to us of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us when He shed His blood on the cross. He was the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish who went to the cross to die for our sins. He did this so that we might become the children of God, so that we might find rest, and safety and security under the blood of the cross.
After the blood of the Passover lamb was applied and the lamb was eaten, God brought the children of Israel up out of Egypt. They crossed the Red Sea on dry land, and then God took them to Mt. Sinai where He gave them the Law. And so it was that the children of Israel became the nation of Israel.
The Law Covenant which was given to the nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai was in effect until the Lord Jesus Christ came to the earth. The book of Hebrews shows us clearly that when Christ came and shed His blood, He established a new and better covenant with Israel.
When God gave the Law, He gave instructions for the building of the tabernacle and for the ceremonies which would be conducted in the tabernacle. God also gave instructions for the ordination of Aaron and his sons as the priests of Israel who would perform the ceremonies of the tabernacle.
The book of Leviticus tells about the different sacrifices that the people were to bring as an offering to the Lord. All of those sacrifices, of course, pointed to the work of Christ upon the cross. Jesus Christ was and is God’s perfect sacrifice for sin.
In Leviticus, we see the various ordinances or laws by which the children of Israel were to live. These laws and ordinances revealed the perfect righteousness of God, and they were given to teach the people how to live and walk in the righteousness of God.
Also in Leviticus, we see the feast days which were for the most part to be great celebrations of joy. However, one of those feasts days was to be a very solemn occasion. The Day of Atonement was a day in which the people would inspect their lives and repent of their sins. On this day the High Priest was to go into the Holy of Holies in the innermost part of the tabernacle to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the altar. This blood would cover his own sins as well as the sins of the entire nation of Israel. This was God’s method of dealing with Israel’s sin until the time that the Lord Jesus came to shed His own blood as the atonement for the sins of the whole world.
The last part of the book of Leviticus tells us about the Sabbath days and the Sabbath years. It also tells of the year of the jubilee in which God would proclaim liberty throughout the whole land of Israel. Then there were also some Laws concerning any vows that the people would make before the Lord.
This brings us up to the book of Numbers which is so named because of the numbering of the people which took place at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. We’ll be looking at that book in the weeks to come, but at this point, I’d like to ask if you have ever really trusted this One who loved you enough to come into the world to die for your sins? How wonderful it is to see God’s plan for the ages and how He has dealt with people in times past, but God wants you to know that He loves you and that He loved you enough to die in order that you might have eternal life.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning.
All of the things that we see in the Old Testament really have their foundation right here in these first five books of the Bible. In the book of Genesis, we find the book of beginnings. In the very first statement, we find a very simple and concise statement of how God created the heavens and the earth. It says:
Genesis 1:1 (KJ2000)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Man might have his speculations and theories of the big bang and all of those other kinds of things, but here in Genesis 1:1, we have a firsthand account of One who was there, who has revealed how He did it.
Genesis 1:1 (KJ2000)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This is a very simple statement that must be believed.
We also find in Genesis that God created the first man. Again, man has all kinds of speculations about the origin of man and the origin of the various families, and these theories of evolution have such a tremendous effect on our lives and on our psychology today.
According to the evolutionary theory, man started out as a one-celled amoeba in a slimy, primeval ocean, but then somehow that little one-celled amoeba evolved to the point that it could climb out onto the dry land and then evolved into the magnificent moral creature that man is today. Well, that’s all just the speculation of man.
In the book of Genesis, we find the beginning of the human family. God said:
Genesis 1:26 (KJ2000)
26 . . . Let us make man in our image . . .
So He:
Genesis 2:7 (KJ2000)
7 . . . formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
He saw that it was not good for man to live alone, so He created a woman to be a helper for him. That woman was called Eve because she was the mother of all living. So here we have the first parents, and we see clearly that they both came from the very creative hand of God.
If we’re going to believe in the second man, the Lord from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, God’s own Son, who came into this world to die for our sins, it’s very important that we believe also in the Genesis account of the creation and the origin of man. After all, the very same book that tells us about Jesus Christ also tells us about the true origin of man and of the universe.
In I Corinthians 15, Paul refers back to Adam and says:
1 Corinthians 15:47 (KJ2000)
47 The first man is of the earth, made of dust . . .
Now if Adam was in fact the first man then there is no room for men who were prehistoric. If there were men before Adam, then Adam was not the first man. But Paul confirms the Genesis account of creation by calling Adam the first man. There were no men on the earth before Adam.
Adam was created by God, and Eve was created by God, and they were the first parents. Therefore, all of us can trace or genealogy back to Adam, himself. And just as God created Adam in His image and in His likeness, so all of us are born with Adam’s likeness.
The book of Genesis tells us that Adam introduced sin into the human race when he and his wife were beguiled by Satan. They rebelled against God, and they ate of the forbidden fruit. God had said:
Genesis 2:17 (KJ2000)
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.
When they ate, they died spiritually. According to Romans, Chapter 6:
Romans 6:23 (KJ2000)
23 . . . the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5 tells us that:
Romans 5:12 (KJ2000)
12 . . . by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men . . .
One of the reasons that man wants to get rid of the historic Adam is that it would do away with the origin of sin in the human family. If you can do away with the truth concerning the original sin of Adam and Eve, then you can also do away with John 3:16. John says:
John 3:16 (KJ2000)
16 . . . God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
In Genesis, however, we not only see the origin of the sin problem, but we also see God’s promise of the Redeemer. God said to the serpent:
Genesis 3:15 (KJ2000)
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
The Lord Jesus Christ came as the Seed of the woman with no earthly father. Though He was born of a woman, God was His Father. When Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, He wounded Satan with a deadly wound which provides deliverance from the dominion of Satan for all who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
As we move on through Genesis, we see the first catastrophe on the earth. During the time of Noah, God destroyed with a great flood the heavens and the earth that had existed from the time of the creation. The heavens and the earth that we see today are the result of that great flood.
After the flood, God dealt with Noah and his descendants, but once again sin became so prevalent that God chose to deal exclusively with one man and his descendants. That man, of course, was Abraham.
God gave Abraham certain promises that form the basis for God’s dealings with man throughout the rest of the Old Testament. All of the promises that were made to Abraham will someday be fulfilled when Jesus Christ returns to the earth at His second coming.
At the close of the book of Genesis, we find Abraham’s descendants down in Egypt where they were known as the children of Israel. They had grown into a very large ethnic group, and the Egyptians had made them their slaves. In Exodus, we see God sending Moses back to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel.
God demonstrated His mighty power to the Egyptians and to the nation of Israel through various judgments. The greatest of these judgments was the last, and it was a judgment in which God killed all of the firstborn sons throughout the land. Only those families who had the blood of the Passover lamb applied to the doorpost were spared.
This stands as a great illustration to us of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us when He shed His blood on the cross. He was the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish who went to the cross to die for our sins. He did this so that we might become the children of God, so that we might find rest, and safety and security under the blood of the cross.
After the blood of the Passover lamb was applied and the lamb was eaten, God brought the children of Israel up out of Egypt. They crossed the Red Sea on dry land, and then God took them to Mt. Sinai where He gave them the Law. And so it was that the children of Israel became the nation of Israel.
The Law Covenant which was given to the nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai was in effect until the Lord Jesus Christ came to the earth. The book of Hebrews shows us clearly that when Christ came and shed His blood, He established a new and better covenant with Israel.
When God gave the Law, He gave instructions for the building of the tabernacle and for the ceremonies which would be conducted in the tabernacle. God also gave instructions for the ordination of Aaron and his sons as the priests of Israel who would perform the ceremonies of the tabernacle.
The book of Leviticus tells about the different sacrifices that the people were to bring as an offering to the Lord. All of those sacrifices, of course, pointed to the work of Christ upon the cross. Jesus Christ was and is God’s perfect sacrifice for sin.
In Leviticus, we see the various ordinances or laws by which the children of Israel were to live. These laws and ordinances revealed the perfect righteousness of God, and they were given to teach the people how to live and walk in the righteousness of God.
Also in Leviticus, we see the feast days which were for the most part to be great celebrations of joy. However, one of those feasts days was to be a very solemn occasion. The Day of Atonement was a day in which the people would inspect their lives and repent of their sins. On this day the High Priest was to go into the Holy of Holies in the innermost part of the tabernacle to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the altar. This blood would cover his own sins as well as the sins of the entire nation of Israel. This was God’s method of dealing with Israel’s sin until the time that the Lord Jesus came to shed His own blood as the atonement for the sins of the whole world.
The last part of the book of Leviticus tells us about the Sabbath days and the Sabbath years. It also tells of the year of the jubilee in which God would proclaim liberty throughout the whole land of Israel. Then there were also some Laws concerning any vows that the people would make before the Lord.
This brings us up to the book of Numbers which is so named because of the numbering of the people which took place at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. We’ll be looking at that book in the weeks to come, but at this point, I’d like to ask if you have ever really trusted this One who loved you enough to come into the world to die for your sins? How wonderful it is to see God’s plan for the ages and how He has dealt with people in times past, but God wants you to know that He loves you and that He loved you enough to die in order that you might have eternal life.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning.
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