Prepare
Opening Prayer
Thank God for the day and ask the Holy Spirit to help us read and understand his Word.
Read
Scripture Passage
Numbers 2:1-2
A — About
What Is This Passage About?
God tells the twelve tribes of Israel to camp with their own tribal standards and emblems at a distance around the tabernacle. The ordered camps identify the people with their tribes while placing God's dwelling in their midst.
B — Best Verse
A Verse That Summarizes the Passage
Numbers 2:2
Distilled from the devotional exposition; the speaker did not explicitly name a best verse.
The transcript does not contain an explicit Best Verse selection. Verse 2 contains the passage's whole instruction: each Israelite camps under his tribal standard while the tribes surround the tabernacle of meeting.
C — Called or Christ
C — Called to Do
Receive the church as the community God has placed around us rather than trying to live as an isolated Christian. Trust and follow the Lord, who dwells in the midst of his people.
Devotional Study
Transcript of the devotion. Minor transcription errors may remain.
Alright, well good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of... Milk. Coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2024, we're going to make it through Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and get into God's Word. Okay, let's pray. God, we thank you so much for this day. We need your Holy Spirit, so please help us to read and understand in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so we're at Numbers chapter 2.
My feet are cold. You got your glasses? Okay. My glasses. Okay, Numbers chapter 2. You ready? Yeah. It's a big verse this time. Well, we're just going to use my Bible for now, okay? Why? Because I have it in front of me. Okay, here we go. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, Every one of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard beside the emblems of his father's house. They shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting. That's it. That's all I'm going to read.
Yeah, here, I'm gonna leave you here for a second and I'm gonna show you something fun, okay? Somebody gave me a gift when I first became a pastor. Ready? I'm gonna sit you right here, okay? I'm gonna get this picture off my wall. And I'll show you this picture, okay? So, let's go ahead and come on up. Okay, so what that said is that there are going to be 12 tribes of Israel, right? So we numbered the tribes of 4. Now just count with me. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Good job. So there's Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Gad, Naphtali, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin.
And each one of them, someone gave this to me and each one of them has a little picture of something in it. That kind of represents something about those people. Regarding the blessings that God had given, Abraham had given them in the book of Genesis. And so you have like flowers and a fortified city and Levi with a breastplate with the different things.
A lion for Judah. That's a donkey for Issachar. Ships for Zebulun. A snake for Dan. Camps for Yad. Hey, Daniel? Yeah, well, Dan means judge. Daniel means God is my judge. Naphtali, which is a deer. Asher, which is a tree. Joseph, an ox. Benjamin, a fox or a wolf or something like that. Yeah. Oh, you want to show our friends? Yeah.
So each one of them, they would camp according to their different tribes. So each tribe has their own different camp. And so Reuben would camp with Reuben, all the people of Simon would camp with Simon, all the people of Levi with Levi, and it would go all the way around the tabernacle. And we'll find out over the next few days how they camped in those different camps.
So somebody gave it to you and you put it on your wall. How do you put it on your wall if you don't have even a stick? Well, I have a nail in the wall, but I like it because of the tribes and the different colors and things. But up here at the top it has Hebrew and at the bottom it has Hebrew. It says... And so this is, may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord's face shine upon you, and may the Lord be gracious to you, and may the Lord give to you peace.
Hey, peace? Um, peace. Uh, I learned Once. Once. Yeah, so have you heard Daddy say that phrase before? No. Yeah, I said the benediction a bunch of times, right? So it has the erotic blessing, the benediction, in the book of Numbers. Did you get your hair cut? I did get my hair cut. Oh. Hey, you ready to pray? Okay.
God, we thank you so much that we are not Christians by ourselves, but that you have given us a camp of people to be surrounded by, and we know that you are in the midst of us. Lord, we thank you so much for this historical truth that you made a nation of Israel. Father, we pray that we would trust you, and that we would follow you all the days of our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen.
You want to say bye-bye? Bye. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week.
If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.