Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20110605.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Numbers: Lessons From Spiritual Casualties And Conquerors
Part II: Pleasing God By Doing HIS Assignment OVER OUR Ideas
(Numbers 3:1-4:49)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    The spiritual needs in the world are so great, the Christian may wonder how he can best invest his life to address them:

    (1) Representative Selim G. Noujaim of the 74th District from Waterbury, Connecticut, wrote a letter in the Republican-American on May 30, 2011 (p. 6A) to report: "On May 24, the House debated and passed a bill . . . that would allow the release of convicted criminals based solely on good' behavior and without regard to whether these criminals, including sex offenders and repeat drunken drivers, have received any counseling or have completed any treatment programs."

    If an official is so upset over his body's handling of criminals that he shares it in his town paper, our state is in great spiritual need!

    (2) On the same page, Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University had an article on "talk" in the current administration "about millionaires and billionaires' needing to pay higher taxes". He noted that in the 1920s, "Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon observed people with high incomes were not paying the high tax rates that existed on paper because they were putting their money into tax shelters. After the tax rates were cut, as Mellon advocated, investments flowed back into the . . . economy, producing higher output, rising incomes and more tax revenue and more jobs."

    Still, talk about raising taxes on the wealthy thrives, though, as Sowell observed: "Even if the income-tax rate were raised to 100 percent on millionaires and billionaires, it would not cover the trillions of dollars the government is spending." (Ibid.)

    If the government then spends far above what it can take in by taxing the rich so that it must eventually significantly raise taxes on the middle class, we have deep spiritual needs in our nation!

    (3) Last Thursday, radio talk show host, Brad Davis, observing last Wednesday's tornado destruction in Springfield, Massachusetts, and, recalling the Joplin, Missouri tornado and flooding in the Midwest said, "In all my decades in radio, I've never seen such a batch of disasters hit Americans as I have this year. It makes you wonder!"

    For us Christians, it makes us realize the Lord may be seeking to get the attention of our country so as to address its spiritual needs!

    So, reflecting on such spiritual problems in our world, we ask, "Should I get creative in addressing these things, or what can I best do with my life to make a productive, edifying difference?!"

    Need: "What can I best do with my life in view of the world's needs?"

  1. Just OPPOSITE their OWN IDEAS of SERVICE, the Levites were appointed by GOD to serve HIM as GOD HIMSELF WILLED:
    1. After reporting that Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, back in Leviticus 10:1-2 had offered an unauthorized offering and were slain by God in judgment, Numbers 3:1-4, 5-6a reports how the Lord had Moses present the Levites to Aaron to give them His ministry assignment.
    2. The Hebrew text at Numbers 3:4, 6a uses a wordplay to teach that the Levites' service was to be what God willed versus what man willed:
      1. In Numbers 3:4, qarab shows Nadab and Abihu "offered" (KJV) an errant sacrifice, and Numbers 3:6a uses qarab to show God called Moses to "bring" (KJV) the Levites as figurative godly living sacrifices to Aaron to be appointed to serve the Lord, Kittel, Biblia Hebraica, p. 193; bible.org/netbible, Numbers 3.
      2. The text thus CONTRASTS Nadab and Abihu's MAN-WILLED sacrifice with the GOD-WILLED sacrifice of the Levites, meaning the Levites were to serve as GOD willed, NOT as THEY willed!
  2. God then laid out His will for the Levites' service, Num. 3:11-4:49:
    1. The Levites were to substitute for Israel's firstborn, Numbers 3:11-13:
      1. When God slew all Egypt's firstborn during the first Passover, He graciously "passed over", or spared the lives of Israel's firstborn because the protective blood of the Passover lamb was applied to the door of the house where the firstborn abode, Exodus 12:21-23.
      2. Thus, by anticipating the substitutionary atonement of His own Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 5:7b), God redeemed all Israel's firstborn and became their Owner! (Exodus 13:1-3)
      3. In Numbers 3, God made a second substitution regarding Israel's firstborn: the men of the tribe of Levi would substitute for all of Israel's firstborn and belong to God, and God then wanted these Levites to serve Him in relation to the tabernacle, Num. 3:6-13.
    2. As God's servants, the Levites were appointed specific divine duties:
      1. [All the Levites were to guard the tabernacle from being profaned by the trespassing of non-priests, meaning they had to police themselves as non-priests to avoid profaning it! (Numbers 3:10)]
      2. The Gershonite Levitical clan was to camp west of the tabernacle and care for all of its coverings and hangings, Numbers 3:18-26.
      3. The Kohathite Levitical clan was to camp south of the tabernacle and care for all of its sacred furnishings, Numbers 3:27-32.
      4. The Merarite Levitical clan was to pitch its tents north of the tabernacle and care for all its framework details, Numbers 3:33-37.
      5. Moses and Aaron and his sons, the priests, were to pitch their tents east of the tabernacle and to supervise these Levitical clans in their ministries relative to Israel and the tabernacle structure, Num. 3:38.
    3. Since there were fewer qualified Levitical ministers than the total number of the firstborn in all Israel, God had the excess number of Israel's firstborn be redeemed by paying ransom money to the Levites, money used in their Levitical tabernacle ministries, Numbers 3:39-51.
    4. Numbers 4:1-49 goes into great detail on the duties of the Levitical clans, explaining what they could and could not do in handling the various sacred furnishings of the tabernacle when it had to be moved during the wilderness journeys to the Promised Land. In all of this, the Aaronic priests were to oversee the Levites, Numbers 4:5-15.
  3. These truths typify God's leading in believers' service works today:
    1. Like the Levites who were redeemed by the blood of the Passover Lamb, we believers today have been redeemed by the blood of God's sinless Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 1:18-19. God owns us!
    2. As such, we are called of God to present ourselves as living sacrifices much as the Levites were presented (qarab ) as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God to serve Him as He wills that we serve, Rom. 12:1.
    3. In this presentation, we believers are not to be conformed to the world, but to be aligned to serving the Lord, Romans 12:2.
    4. Romans 12:3 explains this alignment as follows: the believer in Christ must NOT do what he himself chooses as in the case of Nadab and Abihu who offered their OWN idea of a sacrifice, BUT RATHER, like the Levites, do what GOD gifts and assigns him in the Church:
      1. As seen in the word "For" in Romans 12:3, Romans 12:3-9 reveals God's will for the believer's alignment noted in Romans 12:2.
      2. That alignment is that the believer NOT think of himself more highly than he ought so as to do whatever he chooses as did Nadab and Abihu (Romans 12:3), but to accept his gifting of God to do God's will for him in the Church, Romans 12:3-8.
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ for salvation, John 3:16. (2) As a believer who is owned by and gifted by God to serve Him in a specific way in the Church, may we serve Him just like He wills!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 As a practical application of this message, I wish to address the concerns noted in our introduction the way God wills that I do, using His gift in this local church as His living sacrifice. I hope this serves as a pattern of application for other believers (as follows):

(1) In response to Representative Selim G. Noujaim's letter to the Waterbury newspaper, God does not want me to leave the pastorate to get involved in correcting the Connecticut legislature's errant release of sex offenders and repeat drunken drivers who have not completed any treatment programs or received any counseling. Rather, if confronted by such offenders as they are released, I must share with them the Gospel of salvation so they can be saved from sin. Thus, I must keep giving the Gospel from the pulpit every Sunday in my introduction so that you in the Church are equipped to give it to others, and any visitors present can hear it so as to be saved for society's good!

(2) In view of Thomas Sowell's article on problem taxes, God does not want me to leave the pastorate to become a lobbyist in Washington or a state congressman or local town selectman to get some town, state or federal administration to change its attitude about raising taxes. Rather, I must continue to teach in the pulpit Scriptural principles on managing one's money and properly using it for the Lord so that the people who hear and heed these truths will have all the money they need to obey God regardless what the government does!

(3) When people ponder the possible divine meaning behind this year's rash of natural disasters, God wants me to respond, giving out the Gospel of salvation by faith in Christ from this pulpit and on the Internet to disciple others, addressing their concerns with Scripture.

(4) Then, as such messages by God's grace are heeded in the Church and applied by this congregation, and the messages are posted on the Church web site, others can apply them. In time, people at in various parts of the world can live in blessing!

In the same way, as we EACH use the spiritual gifts God has given EACH of US, doing so in the LOCAL CHURCH assigned of God for us, SERVING as we ought, we will EACH find God blessing our service efforts in His will in the Church.

May we YIELD to the OWNERSHIP RIGHT God has of us believers so that we HUMBLY ACCEPT HIS calling FOR us in HIS gifting, and so serve Him in the Church for the needy world!