The Lord Leads

Hey, 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 coffee We get into God's Word and we grow and I love for the Lord together and this year 2023. No 2024 Lord willing you and I will get through the books of Numbers Numbers Deuteronomy and Hebrews. Sorry brain fart early in the morning. Let's have some coffee. Obviously.
I need it We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. And Father, we thank you that you are a wonderful, generous, gracious God. Lord, we pray that as we read your word, we would behold your glory, we would know who you are, and we would walk in your ways in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so we are at Numbers chapter 10, beginning at verse 29. By the way, thank you for letting me take a little break from this. I needed to go take care of some business for Presbytery, and so out of town for about a week, and so it's good to be back. Let's go ahead and jump in.
Now Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel, the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law, We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said, I will give it to you. Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel. And he said to him, I will not go, but I will depart to my own land and to my relatives.' So Moses said, Please do not leave.
It is as much as you know how we are to camp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes. And it shall be, if you go with us, indeed it shall be, that whatever good the Lord will do to us, the same we will do to you. So they departed from the mountain of the Lord on a journey of three days. And the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them for three days' journey to search out a resting place for them. And the cloud of the Lord was above them by day when they went out from the camp.
So it was, whenever the ark set out, that Moses said, Rise up O Lord let your enemies be scattered and that those who hate you flee before you and When it rested he said return O Lord to the many thousands of Israel Well, we need to ask ourselves our three ABC questions a what's this about be what's the best verse to summarize this and see what do we call to do in response to these saying so a what is this about and Well, Moses is talking to, it seems like his brother-in-law here, so Hobab.
Hobab is the son of Ruel. Ruel is most likely the alternative name for Jethro. So we've already met Jethro before. Jethro was the one who gave Moses the advice that all this work was too much for him. He's going to wear himself out. He needs to put a judicial system in place where Moses was answering the most difficult questions, and he was going to the Lord with those, but there were judges of tens, and judges of hundreds, and judges of thousands, right? And so this is just an alternate name for that. Many people in the Bronze Age had dual names, and so this is most likely just a dual name for for Jethro is Ruel. And so this is his son, and so Moses is asking his brother-in-law, hey, you know the wilderness. Will you take us out into the wilderness? Will you show us, go with us, go with us even into Canaan? And you just know the land, right?
He's almost asking his brother-in-law to be a guide. And it seems like his brother-in-law says, nope, I want to go back to Midian. I want to go back to, go back to where I'm supposed to be, go back to my people. And so it's kind of ambiguous because Moses pleads with him a little bit further, but we don't hear anything else from, from Hobab. So who knows whether he went with them or not, but no matter what the people start marching. And it's amazing what happens is one of the key things here is they leave Sinai. They've been there for a year now. We've been reading all this time. We've been reading for almost a year. And Exodus chapter 20, they came.
God gave them the Ten Commandments. He gave them the tabernacle pattern, all these things. And now they're finally leaving. And now, as they go, notice something interesting. So they departed from the mountain of the Lord on a journey of three days, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them for the three days' journey to search out a resting place for them. The ark of God goes before the people.
The Kohathites have it on their shoulders. They've covered it over with the blue curtain and with the goatskin and with the other curtain. They've covered it over. They're carrying it on their shoulders and they are going in front. But it's not the Kohathites. They're not the ones who are getting the attention.
This is the covenant king. The warrior covenant king of Israel is going ahead of his people. He is leading them on their way. He's the one who's going before them. It is Yahweh himself. It is Yehovah who is going before his people, leading them into the wilderness, to lead them into the land of promise.
And every time that it's time to go, Moses lifts up his voice. And this is Psalm 68. I would actually maybe encourage you to go or sing it sometime. Psalm 68 is what Moses is saying here. Let the Lord arise and all his enemies scattered be. He's saying that it's the Lord who's leading them into battle. It's the Lord who's leading them to victory. It's the Lord who's leading them into the promised land because He's a good covenant-keeping God. And every time that the people move, the cloud goes above them and with them. So this is the first three-day march. And the Lord is leading His people, the Lord is present with His people, and the Lord is caring for His people.
So what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, in my Bible, I would probably have verse 33 underlined. I don't know why I don't actually have anything underlined in here, other than I had a question about who this Hobab guy was. But I would underline verse 33 in my Bible. Well, what's this meant? all us to do.
God is still that same covenant-keeping God, and His presence is still with us, and He still leads us, maybe not visibly, but we know that He has not left us nor forsaken us. He did not leave us as orphans, but He continues to watch out for us, to care for us, and so we follow Him. We listen to him and we take comfort that he is with us and he is still our covenant king.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for being our God. And Lord, we pray that you would arise and your enemies would be scattered. We pray that the final victory would be yours. We pray that we would trust you and walk in the paths that you have walked before us. Lord, that you would lead us in the paths of righteousness. Lord, we pray that where you go and where you lead, Lord, we pray that we would trust in you and we would follow you by faith because you're a good God and you love us. Thank you for giving us Jesus, our covenant King, who we can follow. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. May God bless you. May you walk in grace and in truth. And I'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.