The first Census

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, tea, cranberry juice, juice, milk. I don't know what you're having, but welcome to 2024.
And this year, Lord willing, we're going to continue on and we're going to make it from Numbers through Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. No Daniel. No Daniel. Maybe another time. Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. So we're going to wrap up the Pentateuch and then look at the New Testament interpretation of the Pentateuch in the book of Hebrews. So let's have some coffee. We'll pray. Get in together, Tori. Okay. You guys ready to pray?
Lord, we thank you so much for this day. It's a blessing to get to come to Your Word. And so Father, we thank You for that. We pray that You would please help us to read it and to understand it and that You would apply it to our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Alright, so we are at the book of Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers. Good job. Numbers chapter 1. Where's mine? Oh, keep that there. That's for family worship. You don't want to pull that up. Okay, we'll find back your spot. Oh, there it is.
There's 54 verses? Well, we're only going to read the first 16 verses of Numbers chapter 1. Nope, just from here to here. Alright, so actually when I was looking at the Bible plan, there's going to be some times where we'll read a bunch of verses and sometimes it'll be pretty short, but most of the time pretty short.
Okay, so here we go. Ready? How about I read, hmm, alright Debra you want to read verses 1 through 4 and Nathan you want to take a shot at 5 and following and when you give up you can let me know? Sure. Okay. And then when do I give up? How far are we going? Well how about you read verse 5 then if you want to read. How far are we going? We're only going to verse 16. Okay. What's verse 18? You're going to read this when it's your turn.
Now the Lord spoke to Moses in 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 of Israel, by their families, by their fathers, houses according to the number of names every male individually from 20 years old and above who are who are able to go to war in Israel you and Aaron shall number them by tribe each one the head of his father's house no no no you and Aaron shall number them by their armies and And with you there shall be a man from every tribe, each one the head of his father's house.
Daniel verse 5. These are the names of the men who shall stand with you. Ruben, Eliezer, the son of Shaddor. Shaddor. Okay, Nathan, we'll pick up at verse 6. From Simeon to Lemuel, the son of Zola, the lion should die, and Eurydice, the son of Mimadab, Issachar, Nethanel, the son of Zerubbabel.
Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel. From Zebulun. Zebulun. From Zebulun. Eliab, the son of Helion. From the son of Joseph. From Ephraim. Elishamiah. Elishamiah. The son of Ammohod. Ammohod, yep, good job. Manasseh. Daniel, son of Pedersa, Benjamin, Abidin, the son of Gideon, from Dan, Ezio, the son of Amishadiah, from Asher, Pegion, the son of Okren, From Dad, Elisaph, the son of Durin. From Naphtali, Eliah, the son of Enam. These were the chosen from the congregation, leaders of their father's tribes, heads of the divisions in Israel. Alright, so the Lord spoke to who in the wilderness?
Moses. And where, what were they? In the desert of Sinai. Well, they're in the desert of Sinai. And where does God speak to them? Or speak to Moses? The tabernacle. The tabernacle, good. Do you guys want to know what the name of this book in Hebrew is? Sinai. Yep, the fourth book of Moses called Numbers, that's right.
And so he's talking to them in the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt. So this is one year And a month later, so now it's 13 months after they had come out of Egypt. Now the tabernacle is built, the priesthood is established. They have all these things going for them. And in that year, what does God tell Moses to do in verse 2? Take a census. That's right. And notice, who are they counting in the census? The people of Israel. Every single person? Male. All the males of Israel. Every male of Israel? Like even Daniel and you would be orphaned?
Nope. Nope. Yeah, from 20 years old and above. All who are... You can't go to war. And all unable to go to war. Right? So they're going to go to war. So they're taking a... It's almost like... Yeah, good job. It's almost like they're taking a census of the war. Right? So now... Now they need to do that. So in verse three, halfway through, it says, you and Aaron shall number them by their... What? Do you see it? Father's house. Nope. Verse three, very end of verse three. Number them by their... Armies. Armies, right? So it's almost like each tribe is its own army. It's like... Right? And so they're going to... Because like if you... It's like...
If you don't know how much someone has, it's kind of pointless to send. It's kind of pointless, let's say you wanted the smallest army and then you send out the biggest because you didn't actually know how many people you had in each army. Yeah, right, so they need to know how big the army is. And also they need to know how effective it is. Okay, yeah. And so, notice what it says. And with you there shall be a man from every tribe, each one the head of his father's house. So, that's where verses 5 through 16 are. It's who are these different heads of the tribes.
So, you notice it starts with Reuben, who was Jacob's firstborn. And Reuben, from the tribe of Reuben. Reuben, you have their leader, Eliezer. And then you have Simeon. And from the tribe of Simeon, you have Shemuel, the leader of Simeon. And then from Judah, you have Nashon, the leader of the tribe of Judah. And then from Issachar, that tribe, you have Nathanael. And then from Zebulun, you have Eliab. And then the leader from Joseph. Notice that Joseph is two tribes. Right? Because Jacob adopted. Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.
So, from the tribe of Ephraim, you have the leader Elishamim. And then, from the tribe of Manasseh, you have Gamaliel. And then, you have the youngest brother from the tribe of Benjamin. This is where King Saul would come from. You have Abidin. And then from the tribe of Dan, you have Ahasuer. And then from the tribe of Asher, you have their leader, Pahgiel. And then from the tribe of Gad, you have their leader, Eliasaph. And then from the tribe of Naphtali, you have the leader, Ahirah. And so those are the different tribes.
Wasn't Naphtali Joseph's sister-in-law? No. Nope. These are all the men, all the children of Jacob. But there's one child missing of the tribes of Jacob. Levi. Good catch, right? There's no Levi. Why do you think... Levi isn't counted. They don't go to war.
Their jobs are the priests. Yeah, their jobs are the priests. Isn't that interesting? That they may be exempt from being in the census. So, these were chosen from the congregation, leaders of their fathers' tribes, heads of the divisions of Israel. Right? So you have each tribe, and they've got their leader, and their leader is going to help Moses and Aaron count their different tribes. The rest of, or most of chapter one, the rest of it, we're going to look at those different tribes and how big those tribes were. We'll find that out next time. I get why it's called the Book of Numbers. You see why it's called the Book of Numbers? Yeah, well that's why it's English name is that.
Well, what do you think that this teaches us, or maybe I should ask, what do you think is the best verse to summarize this? 5? I think maybe 4 or 5. Okay, Daniel likes verse 5. I think that's because you've read it. Maybe 4? Maybe verse 4? And what do you think it shall be? 5! I like verse 1. What? Or verse 1 and 2, sorry. Take the census of the congregation of the children of Israel by their families. Right, because I think that's what a huge part of Numbers is. 5! You like verse 5 too? Well, what do you think, how does this apply to us? What do you think, Debra? How does this apply to the church today?
Okay, there might be spiritual warfare, okay? Okay, maybe you need to know what the strengths and weaknesses of the people are? Okay, you might need to know who the most respectful people are. Because if they're not respectful, they might not be good with the army. They might be like, oh, there's a flag, bye, bye, bye. Okay, yeah, so everybody knew who the heads of the tribes were, didn't they? They knew who the leader was.
Yeah, I'm reminded of what happens in the book of Acts where they know the number of people who become Christians. And it seems like they have a list of who's in the church and who's not. Do you think we have that type of list today? Well, we can't say for the whole church, but guess what I do have? For this church? I have a list for our congregation. Who are the people who are communicant members and who are the people who just come to worship but aren't membership? Yeah, we do that every year. We keep a census of kind of the general numbers of the congregation, right?
It's helpful for many, many things. But you know who else I think has a list of names? I think God does. Right? Because he has the book of life. Right? He knows whose names are written in the book of life and whose names aren't. He has the book of everything and that as it says, and if one's unsure of that, he's lost out. Yeah, right. He knows who's in his book of life and who's not, right? So, do we want to be found in that book of life? Yep. Yeah, we absolutely do. And how do you think we are found in that book of life, numbered with the people?
By believing in God. By having faith in Jesus Christ. Okay, let's go ahead and pray, okay? Lord, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you that you know your people by name. You count every hair on our head and know every person who belongs to you. Lord, we pray that you would help us this year to understand your word. In Jesus' name, amen. May God bless you. May you know that Jesus Christ... You're counting the hairs on my head. May you know that Jesus Christ knows you and loves you. And we'll see you next time. 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.