"No Manner of Servile Work" (Numb 28:18)

“In the first day shall be a holy gathering; you shall do no manner of servile work therein” (vs18).

Redemption REQUIRES no work from us.  I spoke to a friend recently on salvation. They want to bible read, attend church, change, feel lightening, and get everything in their life in order… or at least better and satisfactory to themselves… and then they’ll be right with God.  But, they MISS OUT on salvation, so long as they work for it.


Will you conquer sin? Then don’t work; Christ redeemed you and the victory is yours (Judges 11:8).  Will you have the Spirit’s power? Then don’t work. Christ DIED, and it is yours.


We UNDERESTIMATE Christ, so we work. We call God un-gracious, so we labor for His gifts, as if our efforts charm the stingy God.


Yes, obedience is needed, but it was performed by Jesus; yours is to obey the gospel by BELIEVING that you’re blessed. As you hear Eph 1 and as you preach the same, tell men and women lost in their sins that they are chosen of God, and see if they believe. If so, then they are saved; if not, then they have REJECTED the only way of escape - free sovereign mercy to sinners by Christ’s death, to all that believe (Matt 9:29).  Faith isn’t added to Christ; faith is how I know Christ died for me: I believe.

“Too Heavy For Me” (Numb 11:4-15)

“I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.” (vs14)

We will have trouble, no matter who we are, and it CANNOT be avoided: Satan will test, sinners will sin, and the flesh of the believer will rise up unexpectedly and assault us; yes, we have SIN to deal with in self, no matter how we grow in God.  Yet, the REMEDY for this pain is the gospel of Christ, that He’s given us a Helper to enable us to do His will, a Helper to help with the burdens and to make us ABLE to love and have peace.  God the Spirit is the Helper, so that I can do all things, trusting the gospel, by the power of God PROMISED to me by faith only. I haven’t been left to will power or merit; I have GOD’S promised power by FAITH in Christ’s COMPLETED work; He EARNED the Spirit, who will help us do His bidding.

Do not look inwardly or to any man as your Helper; look to God in Jesus Christ RECONCILED to do you good undeservedly and even unexpectedly, by FAITH in Christ. He EARNED salvation, and only by BELIEVING on Him shall we be saved.

The New Generation (Numb 14:33) C.A. Coates

“And your children shall feed in the wilderness forty years, and bear your wholesome, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness”

The new generation is not only fed in the wilderness, but it is disciplined there. It has to learn how displeasing to God all the ways of the old generation are. It has to bear the "whoredoms" of those whose carcasses are being wasted in the wilderness (verse 33). So that their senses are being continually "exercised for distinguishing both good and evil". The "children" were learning, typically, the good in being fed and nurtured by God; they were learning the evil in bearing the whoredoms of the generation that was to perish in the wilderness. These exercises go on with all the children of God. Those who are of the new-born race are nurtured by God, but they have to learn what the old generation is, not merely as seeing it in others, but as finding that in their own flesh good does not dwell. We have all to learn to submit ourselves to the discerning and penetrating power of the living and operative word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart, and lays all things naked and bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

All this exercise casts us continually upon grace and mercy. But there is a throne of grace to which we may approach with boldness, and we have a great High Priest who is able to sympathise with our infirmities. There is everything to encourage confidence even in the feeblest believer. The trials and difficulties of the wilderness now become discipline for us which faith accepts as the chastening of love. The Father of spirits chastens us for our profit "in order to the partaking of his holiness". The nurture and the discipline are going on all the time with every one of the children of God in view of our going into the land.

It is no part of the teaching of this chapter that children of God may fall in the wilderness. It is calculated to produce and deepen in us all great diligence that we may not do so. This is exactly the exercise suggested by Hebrews 3 and 4. But in that epistle, though the writer warns against the danger and possibility of unbelief working, he writes as persuaded concerning those to whom he wrote that they had shown love to God’s Name. This was a clear proof that they were linked with Joshua-"connected with salvation" -and not part of the hardened and unbelieving generation. Indeed, he says with much certainty, "But we are not drawers back to perdition" -we do not want to make a captain and return to Egypt-"but of faith to saving the soul" (#Heb 10:39).

So that while Numbers 14 is full of grave admonition as to the consequences of unbelief, it contains much that is most encouraging and stimulating to faith. We might say that its great positive teaching is that, some will come into the land. Joshua and Caleb, and all the new-born generation will come in. So that the next section of the book (#Numbers 15:1-31) takes account of the children of Israel as being composed of persons who are going to "come into the land of your dwellings, which I give unto you". The generation of unbelief drops out of the mind of the Spirit of God the end of that generation having been declared in this chapter. In the next section God identifies the people with the new race that will enter in. After fully exposing unbelief and its end, He goes on with what was before His own heart and mind.

CAC

“Second Rank”, A Message On Contentment (Numb 2:16)

“All that were numbered in the camp of Reuben were a hundred thousand and fifty and one thousand and four hundred and fifty, throughout their armies. And they shall set forth in the second rank.  Then the tabernacle of the congregation shall set forward with the camp of the Levites in the midst of the camp: as they encamp, so shall they set forward, every man in his place by their standards” (vs16-17).

If we don’t have the highest place, if we are not the most blessed and spiritual, then we STILL have the blessing of God, whom we can have fully - “But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet I show unto you [love] a more excellent way“ (1 Cor 12:31). We can’t all have the same gifts, because the body needs different members. If everyone preached like Whitefield, then the church couldn’t meet together, as God intends. But, whatever place God commands you and me to have and whatever gifts He gives us, just know that you and I have God, the delight of life, and we can need no more -“And having food and raiment, we will be therewith contented” (1 Tim 6:8)*. We live to SAVE sinners, whether we save 10 or 1,000,000.  It doesn’t matter; it ONLY matters the life we live FOR Christ.

* If food, raiment, and God DON’T make us happy, it is because we need more of God and not less.  Don’t turn your back and chase the world; God and the essentials of life (food and shelter/raiment) is enough, so SATISFY your thirsts in Christ, who will give you more.