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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. We are in numbers, chapters nine through 12. A lot of transition in this chunk of the book. When we get to chapter 13, we're going to. You'll see a sharp, sharp turn, but we're going to start turning now. Okay? So if you've done the reading, good job. We're going to dive in like always. I'm going to give you context clues, going to give you some nerdy nuggets, going to leave you with a timeless truth by the end. If you have not done the reading, you want to go do that. All right. You want to go get the reading done. So let's dive in. Numbers, chapters nine through 12. All right, so this section starts with like, everything is great. Like, the description that we have is we've. We've left off with God shining his face on the people. We have a. We have an Eden situation in the middle of the wilderness. I mean, you got everything that you would need. Okay. Like, everything is so, so good. We have an ordered people, we have a generous people. We have the light of God shining on his people. We have priests, we have God's presence. And remember the very first time that we saw, like, the pillar of cloud, like, leading the people was right after the Passover in Exodus. We're going to have that again. I mean, we've got God's presence, we've got every. We have Eden. Like, people have multiplied, they're fruitful. We have Eden right here at the foot of Mount Sinai. And so we're gonna get a transition. Okay? It says this in numbers. Chapter 10. It says, on the 20th day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the Covenant Law. Then the Israelites set out in the desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the desert of Paran. They set out this first time as the Lord commanded through Moses. So we got obedience. I mean, guys, like, the Bible's just painting like, this recreated Eden. But of course we know that it's not going to last. Like, the. This is a sweet situation. The people have multiplied and they're fruitful. We get a lot of content that we probably don't like to read. But it's reiterating just how ordered the people are. You have a census, they're generous. We got God's face shining on them. There's so much going. There's so many good things going here. Like, honestly, like, up until this point, up until chapter 10, everything's going great. We got Eden out in the wilderness. We got an oasis. Like, we got an oasis of God's provision. Just traveling around the desert, just traveling around the wilderness. This is amazing. And then chapter 11. Now, the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord. And when he heard them, his anger was aroused. Dun, dun, dun. Okay, Numbers, the book of numbers up until this point is just communicating, man, this is. This is good as it's ever been for Israel. We're free from Egypt. We got an army, we got Levites, we got a tabernacle. We've got generous people, we've got order, we've got a cloud. We got so much going for us. Like, we're winning. Like, as you read through the text, that's how you're supposed to feel all the way up until chapter 11. And then you're like, really? This was going so good. Just when I was about to just breathe a sigh of relief because this was going so, so, so, so good. Now it's gonna go bad. Okay, so we're gonna get three mini rebellions in the wilderness. And then when we get to chapter 13, we're gonna get. We're gonna get some big rebellions, but we got some mini rebellions. Okay, numbers, chapter 11. Okay? Everything is going to change at number chapter 13. We're going to get the spies in the land, and that's going to be a huge rebellion. And, I mean, it's just going to spiral out of control from there. So Numbers chapter 11 says this. God gets angry. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. So that place is called Tabora because fire from the Lord had burned among them. Okay, so just three verses. Okay, so we're going to get a mini rebellion. Then we're going to get another one. The rabble with them began to crave other food. And again the Israelites started wail. So they don't learn their lesson. They're wailing. If we only have meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost. They got this long list, man. Cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic. But now we have lost our appetite. We never see anything but this manna. Do they want meat? And so God provides quail. But this story does not end well. All right, this story ends by saying this. All that day and night, and all the next day, the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than 10 homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore, the place was named Kibroth Hattavah because there they buried the people who had craved other food. And then we've got mini rebellion number three, Miriam and Aaron. This is chapter 12, the very, very beginning of chapter 12. Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses. Oh. Because of his kushite wife, Moses was down for the brown. Clearly. Okay, Moses wife is a woman of color. Let's go. I can agree with you, Moses. My wife is a woman of color too, bruh. Okay? And I want you to see the irony of God here, okay? In the punishment. So Miriam seems to be the ringleader here when it comes to gossiping about homegirl. God is not happy about this. Here's what God says. When there's a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions. I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him, I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles. He sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Here's where you're gonna see. Hey, God is reminding Miriam and Aaron he's not just your brother. Like, he's different. There's this TV show that I really like. It's called the Crown. In it, the Queen Elizabeth's character, her sister, like, refers to her as, like, this family name. It's like Lilibet. And she makes it really clear, like, I'm not speaking as your sister right now. I'm your queen. And I think that sometimes familiarity, the old saying goes, familiarity can breed contempt. And the more you become super, super familiar with somebody, maybe because they're a family member or a spouse, you become less aware that God's hand is on them in a very, very unique way, that they are anointed by God. And I know that we love. We live in a very democratic or almost like egalitarian society, but we have to ask, like, is my worldview American or is it biblical? And an American worldview is very egalitarian, right? God's favor is on everybody, and everybody's equal, and everybody gets a vote. When you read the Bible, you start to go, nah, Jesus don't treat Peter and John the same way that he treats Judas and Andrew. Like, like, like. No, there. There is. There is like, a. A special favor that certain people have with God. And I think that especially for millennials and Gen Z, we can become overly familiar with things that God is saying are holy. So the same exact thing that's happening with the tabernacle by saying, hey, this is holy versus common. I think God is also establishing with Moses, he's saying, hey, I know this is your brother, but he's not common. Like, he's been set apart by me. Moses is special. And you don't. You. You need to calm down. Okay? So that's. I feel like that's a. That's a timeless truth, actually. So I've kind of stolen my own thunder. I didn't wait till the end to give that timeless truth, but gave it right in the right. Right while I was in the middle of establishing context. Now, let me give you this nerdy nugget. It says the anger. The Lord burned against them. That's Aaron. Aaron and Miriam. And he left them. God's like, I'm out of here. All right? He left them. When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam's skin was leprous. It became as white as snow. You get the irony. It's like, hey, Miriam, you got a problem with Moses black wife? How about we make you white as possible? Okay, so she becomes leprous white. The irony here is man like, oh, you. You got a problem with the color of somebody's skin. All right, let's fix the color of your skin then. Since you like. Since you like pale, pasty whiteness, let's get you as pale and pasty as possible. And homegirl gets leprosy. Now let's see Moses's heart. So the Lord. So Moses cried out to the Lord, please, God, heal her. The Lord replied to Moses, if her father had spit in her face, would she have not been in disgrace for seven days? Confined her outside the camp for seven days. After that, she'll be brought back. So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back. After that, the people left and encamped in the desert of Paran. So she obviously gets healed and she's allowed to come back into the camp. Okay, so these are many rebellions. Okay? First, people are just grumbling and complaining. Fire burns the outskirts of the camp. Three, the. They want meat. They're sick of the manna, which is crazy. You can be sick of the miracle. They're. They are desensitized to a miracle. And since, since this is now a theme, the tabernacle has to be treated as holy, the mana should be treated as holy. This is a miracle from God. How in the world did a miracle become mundane? Because I got familiar with it. I got overly familiar. And now the same thing is happening with Moses. Okay, so whether it's miraculous provision or the presence of God or person that God has graced and put his hand on, it can be very, very possible to become desensitized to the miraculous provision of God, presence of God and person of God. Okay, so provision, presence, and people. Like God blesses us with people. He blesses us with provision. He blesses us with his presence. And we have to remember to not get desensitized to anything that God's blessed us with. Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos releases may of 2025 in pre. Orders are officially open. When I began to Learn Genesis in its proper context. I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me. Me, because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really, God's solution to chaos is never peace, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into, and that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order, or head to crushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast. Now there's another thing happening, kind of. So we'll move. That's, like, context for this whole section. Okay, now we'll kind of move into some nerdy nuggets. There's another thing happening in this section. And if you go back. Okay, to chapter 10, actually no, chapter nine, then the people are gonna celebrate Passover. But there's a group of people who kind of have, like, an issue. And their issue is on the 20th day of the second month of the year. This is numbers nine six two eight, six through eight. But some of them could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account of a dead body. They came to Moses and Aaron that same day and said to him, we have become unclean because of a dead body. But why should we keep from presenting the Lord's offerings with the other Israelites at the appointed time? Verse 8, Moses answered them, wait until I find out what the Lord commands concerning you. I love this little part. Because now God is, you know, Moses is going to go to God and get wisdom on, okay, what do we do? Like God, you gave us these rules about Passover. Here's like, a caveat, here's an exception. These people can't celebrate the Passover because of another rule that you've instituted. So you got rules that are. That are. That are forming, that are creating a contradiction or point of tension. And so The Lord says, hey, instead of celebrating the Passover at the time when everybody else celebrates it, it says, but they are to do it. This is verse 11 of chapter 9. But they are to do it on the 14th day of the second month. So instead of celebrating on the first month, celebrating on the second month, okay? And that'll be what you need to do. But this creates a theme that I think is really, really important. And there are 613 laws that we're going to get throughout the Torah. And you would think, man, 613 laws. That's such a burden. That's a very Christian response. That's such a burden. How do they obey all these laws? But what we're gonna find over and over and over again is that the burden is not the law cover, okay? There are scenarios that aren't covered, which means the law that was given by God was not exhaustive, exhaustive or comprehensive. It wasn't complete or total. Which means that the people are gonna continue to need clarity around how to apply the law of God into all kinds of different scenarios, which is what happens with you and I. So get this. This is God's solution to. The people are gonna have to keep coming to Moses to figure out how to apply God's law. And so Numbers, chapter 11, verse 25. Then the Lord came down on the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the spirit that was on Moses and he put it on 70 elders. When the spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but did not do so again. Verse 26. However, two men whose names were Eldad and Medad had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent yet. The spirit also rested on them and they prophesied in the camp. Get this, Joshua. A young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medab are prophesying in the camp. Joshua, son of nun, who had been Moses aid since youth, spoke up and said, moses, my Lord, stop them. Okay? So God said, give me 70 elders. I gotta put my. I gotta put the spirit that I've placed on Moses. I gotta put it on multiple people. Because I've created a system where everyone is now dependent on Moses to ask me all these questions. Let's get the Spirit on. On multiple people. And the Spirit of God is supposed to help me to interpret the laws of God from my unique scenario. Okay? That's what the spirit of God is for. That. The Bible doesn't say anything about smoking weed, but I'm supposed to Go to the word of God with the spirit that he's given me to get wisdom for a current life scenario. That is what wisdom and the Holy Ghost is for. Hey, the Holy Spirit doesn't say move to Houston. That's not in the Bible. Those words aren't in the Bible. But now if I'm filled with the Spirit of God and I have the wisdom of God, I can go to the word of God and apply the word of God in a way. So when the Bible says that, when the Word says that the Bible is alive and active, that the word of God is alive and active, it's sharper than any double edged sword that requires that someone has the spirit of God living on the inside of them. And since the Holy Spirit inspired the word of God and is living on the inside of you, then the spirit that inspired the word is supposed to testify with the spirit that's on the inside of you. This is what Paul does in Corinthians. He's like, hey, there's no command on this. And this is me speaking. This is Paul speaking. But I, I too have the spirit of God. He's saying, all right, there's no command. But I'm being led by the Holy Spirit to tell you what you should do when it comes to marriage and, and the end times. And Paul is addressing a whole bunch of things in Corinthians as it relates to should widows stay married or should they get married again, or should they stay unmarried or should they stay single. And he says, all right, there's no command. But as someone who has the Holy Spirit, let me give you my perspective. And that process is still happening today. Hey, the Passover is supposed to be celebrated, but we're, we can't do it because we're. Do we do Moses? What do we do? Okay, Moses, you go find an answer. And now God goes, all right, let's get the spirit that's on you onto a bunch of people. Joshua is like, wait a second, I thought we was getting 70 people. Was getting the Holy Ghost. Two extra people have gotten the Holy Ghost. Eldad and me, dad have gotten the Holy Ghost too. We can't have no extra people with the Holy Ghost around here. But Moses in verse 29, chapter 11 replied, Are you jealous? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them. This is Moses heart. I wish all of them were prophets. I wish all of them had the Holy Ghost. Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. Now the Old Testament is not supposed to just give us a longing or desire for a Savior, but the Old Testament is also supposed to give us a longing and a desire for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That passages like this are supposed to help us go, okay, the problem's not the law. The problem is that we didn't have the infilling of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the law by obeying it. That was actually the issue. And so now Jesus comes in the New Testament, he says, ah, I'm not going to abolish the law. I'm actually going to give you a higher law. You thought that you couldn't just commit adultery. You can't even lust. The law doesn't get abolished, it gets elevated. So if you think that the Old Testament is a burden, you're going to think the New Testament is a real bad burden. But is it a heavier burden? Yes. But do we have more support? Yes. You have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that not only gives you wisdom on how to apply God's Word to your life, but also gives you the means of grace to actually obey God's Word. And that. That's a timeless truth. Moses says it right there. I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord put His Spirit on all of them. As a pastor, as a minister of the gospel, I can, I can agree with Moses. I wish that all God's people were prophets. I wish that every single person in church had the spirit of God living within them and that. And that they would use it, they would trust it. Do I think that people need to come to the front and get hands laid on them by the elders and receive prayer? Absolutely. That stuff's amazing. But I also think that there's a revelation that people need to go, hey, man, whether Pastor Manny's available or not, I. I have the Holy Spirit. And we believe in the priesthood of all believers. It's actually one of the things that Martin Luther puts a stake in the ground when it comes to the Protestant Reformation. And I agree. And we have to hold these two truths in tension. Moses is anointed and he's special. And Aaron and Miriam need to realize that. Also Moses wants all the people to have the spirit of God and have the wisdom of God so they can apply the Word of God into their unique context. So we're watching people apply the Word of the Lord to their unique context, and we are going to do the same. Very similar moment happens with, I think it's five daughters, their father has no sons, no male, no male heir, and they don't have any brothers. And they're like, hey, we know what the law says, that you got to be a male to inherit property. But can we, like, can we, as his daughters, inherit the land, inherit the property? And the spirit of the Lord now gives a new command or a new verdict based on a new scenario. So the word of God is alive and it's active. And anyone who's engaging with the word of God seriously is trying to apply the word of God to each unique cultural context as we, as cultural contexts continue to evolve and unfold. Humanity isn't evolving like we're. We're the same sinful, crazy people that we've always been since Adam and Eve. But scenarios do change, and it requires wisdom to apply a word from God that's bound in cultural context and apply it to a new cultural context. That requires the spirit of God. That requires the spirit of prophecy, and that is what all of us have access to, and that is our timeless truth for the day. All right, tomorrow we are gonna finally get to numbers, chapter 13, which is gonna be a massive rebellion. So we covered a lot today. I hope that it has made the reading come alive, illuminate for you. I'll be right here tomorrow. If you're on a streak, don't you break your streak. If you're not on a streak, then let's start one. As long as you read today, and then tomorrow. That's two days in a row. You're one day away from a streak, baby. All right, so I'm so proud of you. I love you guys. I'll see you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram @thebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.