Numbers Chapters 33 & 34- Schoolmaster to Christ

Schoolmaster to Christ
NUMBERS CHAPTERS 33 & 34

Scripture Reading: Numbers 33 & 34 (KJV)

The first of these chapters gives us a wonderfully minute description of the desert wanderings of the people of God. It is impossible to read it without being deeply moved by the tender love and care of God so signally displayed throughout the whole chapter. To think of His deigning to keep such a record of the journeying of His poor people, from the moment they marched out of Egypt until they crossed the Jordan – from the land of death and darkness to the land flowing with milk and honey. "He knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing." He went before them, every step of the way; He traveled over every stage of the wilderness; in all their afflictions He was afflicted. He took care of them like a tender nurse. For all these forty years, He did not allow their garments to become old or their feet to swell; and here He retraces the entire way by which His hand had led them, carefully noting each successive stage of that marvelous pilgrimage, and every spot in the desert where they had halted. What a journey; what a traveling companion.

It is very consolatory to the heart of the poor, weary pilgrim to be assured that every stage of his wilderness journey is marked out by the infinite love and unerring wisdom of God. He is leading His people home to Himself by a way that is right; and there is not a single circumstance in their lot or a single ingredient in their cup, that is not carefully ordered by Him with direct reference to their present profit and everlasting felicity. Let it be our only care to walk with Him day by day in simple confidence, casting all our care on Him and leaving all our belongings and ourselves absolutely in His hands. This is the true source of peace and blessedness, all the journey through. And then, when our desert wanderings are over, when the last stage of the wilderness has been trodden, He will take us home to be with Him forever.

There with what joy reviewing
Past conflicts, dangers, fears.
Thy hand our foes subduing,
And drying all our tears.
Our hearts with rapture burning,
The path we shall retrace,
Where now our souls are learning,
The riches of Thy grace.

Numbers 34 gives the boundaries of the inheritance, drawn by the hand of Jehovah. The same hand that had guided their wanderings now fixes the bounds of their habitation. They never took possession of the land as given by God. He gave them the whole land, forever. They took only a part and that for a period of time. But, blessed be God, the moment is approaching when the seed of Abraham will enter on the full and everlasting possession of that eternal inheritance, from which we are presently excluded. Jehovah will assuredly accomplish all His promises, and lead His people into all the blessings secured for them in the everlasting covenant, that covenant which ratified by the blood of the Lamb. Not one jot or tittle of what He has spoken will fail – His promises are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus, Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. All praise to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.