Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Who Are You Following? | Torah | Numbers 10:11-36

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

Where do you look for comfort or confidence? Do you rely on yourself or something other than God? In today’s episode, Tanya discusses why Israel looked to God in Numbers 10:11-36 and why we should still look to God. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Numbers 10:11-36

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. We made it all the way to a Starbucks in Iowa before I opened the back of the car and before three suitcases of cooler and a bag of shoes fell out in the parking lot. I really tried to keep my cool. In fact, I didn't raise my voice while I pulled every other thing out of the back of the car and slammed it onto the parking lot pavement. I doubt anyone could even tell I was frustrated while I realized. loaded all seven suitcases and six backpacks into a perfect tetras formation. I'll let you wonder who brought two suitcases.

See, we were about five hours into an 11-day road trip that's put on our calendar and affectionately referred to as Wilmuth's Drive Across America. So I slammed the hatch door shut before anything could fall. I wiped my hands together and I said to anyone watching with total amazement, you should always let a woman load the car. No one was watching with total amazement, by the way. Now, when people heard about our plans to drive from Missouri through Iowa and South Dakota and then Wyoming and Montana and Idaho, we either got pity or mad respect. I think they were trying to picture all six of us. Most of us adult sides by now smushed into the car for that many hours,

and they were right. But I would say the trip was a solid 10. Maybe it could have been a 12, but all deduct two points for the relational and personality problems the packing process revealed. The saving factor of the trip was that we had a plan, and we had a major destination on the agenda almost every single day. So it was in knowing that we were going to see or experience or do something pretty cool or meaningful that made the trip meaningful or worthwhile most of the time. The book of numbers is a whole book of logistics and travel logs and relational narratives for what we could call the Israelites travel across the wilderness. This was a massive undertaking to move a group this size across the desert.

And the book of Numbers opens with attention to all of the details about how to deal with that. And then finally, in Numbers chapter 10, the people are ready to roll. And Israel is on the verge of a new start as they set out on a journey from Sinai to Peron. The car was packed, so to speak, and the people were divided into camps. So the eastern camp left first, and then the southern camp, and then the Western camp and then the northern, and taking up the rear with the tribes of Dan, Asher, and Nafali. Now, there were a lot of unknowns about how to travel in this region

and how to move forward with a group this size. But they knew they weren't going alone. One thing was for certain, and that was the presence of the Lord. Now, this was a big deal, because do you remember back in the book of Exodus, when they built the golden calf, God said in Exodus 33, go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up among you, lest I consume you with fire, for you are a stiff-necked people.

But in His mercy, the Lord did not leave them on their own. And that's what we just worked through in the whole book of Leviticus. So what a stark contrast between those words in Exodus 33 and the way the first leg of this journey is described in Numbers, chapter 10, verse 33, when it says, So they set out from the mount of the Lord, three days journey, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them three days journey to seek out a resting place for them.

And the cloud of the Lord was over them by day whenever they set out from camp. Now this is the story of the Lord, the Lord being with them, the Lord having forgiven them, the Lord among them, the Lord leading them. Yeah, the details of the trip are really important. We know they are. And the logistics matter greatly. organization it's necessary for safety and it's necessary for survival the quality of leadership totally integral to success but the confidence for the journey is solely based on the presence of the

lord they weren't just following moses they weren't just following great leaders they were following the lord let's say it differently taking into account where they've been they get to follow the lord the lord wanted to be among them Now, when Paul was writing to encourage believers, he talked about it like a race, and he said to keep running the race toward the hope of God's promise. And when he did that, he warned them against idolatry, and he referred to the Israelites and this cloud in the desert. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul said,

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Now what Paul is saying is that Christ, in spiritual form, was ever present with the Israelites. He was there to part the sea, to supply the water, to provide the manna, and to lead them in the cloud. And Christ is with us. He intercedes on our behalf.

and when we follow him, we can have confidence about where we're going and who's going with us. Now, God made a promise to Abraham when he said, go into a land I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation. And everything about that journey, from Abraham until Moses, it continually confirmed the Lord's faithfulness to his promise. And right now the Lord is literally in a cloud traveling in front of them. Now as those adopted through Christ into the family of God, we share in the promise that we will finish the race and live with God forever. With Christ as our rock, we don't have to run away or hide when we take a wrong turn or fall behind in the journey.

When we throw a fit in the parking lot because the suitcases fell out, we can get back in the car and apologize to our families and thank God that he is the only one who currently loves us and wants to be with us. Christ is our help, but he's also our identity. God will not abandon us when we sin because Christ lives in us. We have absolute confidence in this. So who are you following? As we map out our lives, we know where we're going, but we know we're going to face uncertainty. And when it happens, we look for a pillar to follow. And those words Paul wrote are about choosing the wrong thing to follow. He warns us against choosing idols to follow. So how do we know when we're following our idols? Well, often we can look at the things that make us really anxious or really excited or really impatient. Those things tend to be our idols, or at least they tend to reveal them.

Here's some more. What do you think about when you wake up in the middle of the night? What do you think will make you happy when you finally have it. Is it financial freedom? Is it a girlfriend, a boyfriend? Is it a spot on a team? A career, a degree? What would your roommate or your spouse or your friend say comes between you and your relationship with them?

Is it a habit? Is it social media? Is it something that you just enjoy doing that's a good thing, but maybe we tend to overuse? Now, by no means is this an exhaustive list, or by no means does it mean those things are idols. But we often look to false gods to know we're okay or to know that we matter. We look to things other than God to solve the unsettled feelings in our souls. These Israelites, they were going to get unsettled as they traveled, but they were supposed to look at the cloud and follow God.

Now, those other things we follow, they're called. idols because we're asking them to do something that they can't. We're giving them the power to tell us where to go, to tell us we're okay, and we turn away from the rock that has made us okay with God, Jesus Christ. Now wait for it tomorrow. Tune in. Jensen's going to tell us what comes next for the Israelites, and it's probably not going to be a huge surprise. Why are we not surprised? Is it because we know our tendency to turn to something less when we've been given something better. And why do we turn within? Why do we turn to our own morality and our self-willed ways of doing the right things or making it for wrongs when we have the indwelling Holy Spirit to confirm

God's love for us? Like the cloud that was always before them, let ourselves be reminded of God's present with us. Let's be intentional to consider who we're following when we're busy and when we aren't. Let's think 10 times on God's love for every one time we consider our own performances. Let's make it 100. Let's ask people to remind us. Let's write it on a Post-it note. Let's tell someone else. God loves you. He leads you. We get to follow him. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.