Numbers 3:33-37

Hey, 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 in our love for the Lord together. This year, 2024, Lord willing, we'll make it through Numbers, Deuteronomy and Hebrews. I'm so glad to be with you today. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to get to come to you to read your word. We need your spirit, Lord. Please help us to read it and understand. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.
All right. So we are at Numbers chapter three. Numbers chapter three, just a few verses today. Remember, we have been looking at the three different sons of Aaron, or sorry, three different sons of Levi. And so we had Gershon and then we had the Kohathites. And now we're at the last of the three families of Levi.
From Marari it came the family of the Mahalites and the family of the Mashites these were the families of Marari and Those who were numbered according to the number of all the males from a month old and above were six thousand two hundred The leader of the father's house of the families of Merari was Zuriel, the son of Abil. These were to camp on the north side of the tabernacle.
And the appointed duty of the children of Merari included the boards of the tabernacle, its bars, its pillars, its sockets, its utensils, all the work relating to them. and the pillars of the court all around with their sockets, their pegs, and their cords."
So what is this about, right? We need to ask our three questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what do we call it to do? Well, spoiler alert, best verse is difficult other than, you know, maybe underlining the very first section where it's from Merari came the family, the Mololites, right?
So this third son of Levi, Merari, 6,200 that's how many people are of this family in the tribe of Levi and what's their job? All the Levites have a job. Well, the job of the Levites was to take care of the tabernacle when it was moving around. And so this one is specifically the Morarites are to take care of all the hardware. They're actually going to be allotted a number of different uh carts later on we'll find out to to carry all the stuff for the tabernacle this is one of the ways in which Trust the Bible spoiler alert, right? I believe this is a true story and part of a true story is people know what they're supposed to be doing and God's the one telling the morale rights here Somebody's got to take care of the poles and the pegs and the boards and all that other stuff So that's gonna be your job guys And so the Morarites, they don't go to war. The Levites aren't numbered with the fighting men, but from one month old and above, there's 6,200 of these Morarites that are going to be carrying the stuff of God, all the hardware needed for the actual tabernacle when they're going. Now, interestingly also, it notes where they sleep. They're the camp on the north side of the tabernacle. So we've seen people who are camping on the west side and on the south side. Now these guys are on the north side.
So in some of the study Bibles, again, I'm going to encourage you, when you go through these things, pick up a study Bible. Most good study Bibles are going to have kind of pictures of what the camp looks like here. You have all the different camps of Israel all around the perimeter, right? North, south, east, and west. Judah on the east, first to camp out, or first to march out, right? So you have those different camps.
But then in the center you have the tabernacle. What we find out is at the center where the tabernacle, now we have camps on the north, west, and south of the tabernacle. So closer to the tabernacle are the families of Levi. So the families of Levi aren't camping around with everybody else, but they're closer to the center, right near the tabernacle, right? Because anybody else who approaches the tabernacle, we read earlier, will be put to death.
And so this is really what this is about. So what are we called to do? What are we called to do? Well, we've talked about this a number of times already, but here I'm gonna talk about shouldering your burden. God's given you work to do. It's a pleasure to work for the Lord. He's not a cruel taskmaster. He appoints 6,200 of these people to do their work. It's not too much for them to bear. But I think about how heavy those boards must have been, how heavy the poles must have been.
And then I think about the one who would come not from the family of Levi, but would come from the family of Judah, who would be not of the order of Aaron as a priest, but of the order of Melchizedek. And there, Jesus Christ, he also carried some hardware, didn't he? Slipping, falling, taking one step after another, carrying what would be his instrument of death, but would be our entranceway into the heavenly tabernacle. Jesus Christ knew what it was like to carry a load, and did so for us. See, if the Morarites, if the Kohathites, if the Gershonites, if none of them did their jobs, their part in this, where would be the tabernacle? This the whole thing depended on people actually doing their part And so our entire communion with God Depended on whether Jesus Christ would actually do his part or not And that's what Jesus says not my will Lord but yours Jesus admits himself to the will of his father And he carries that burden I know this is kind of, some people are going to be mad because they're not, this is not a literalist reading and that's fine.
I'm talking about an application here. But it's Jesus Christ who bore for us both that cross and the weight of our sin. It's Jesus Christ who's our hope. All this tabernacle is meant to be pointing to him. And he saved us. He fulfilled the work. And it's only because of him that we get to enter into God's presence in the heavenly tabernacle. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for the truth of both the earthly tabernacle that people were able to see and feel. Lord, we thank you so much for giving us hope in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the truth of a heavenly tabernacle we cannot see and we cannot feel. Lord, yet by faith we believe what you have told us. We thank you that Jesus Christ has entered in as our high priest. We thank you that he did his perfect work for us and for your glory. Please comfort our hearts, Lord, we pray in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you today as you enter into his presence. May you go to his throne of grace boldly. May you pray and enjoy his blessings.
I'll see you next time. 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 in 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.