In Israel’s case the gaps were filled by their own sons. As these men passed away their children took their places. I commend to you, my brethren, this fact as your encouragement in prayer for your children. Oh, that the Lord would pour his spirit upon our seed, and his blessing upon our offspring! Oh, that every saint here may be succeeded by his own descendants! This is the Lord’s frequent way of keeping alive the gracious succession. Abraham is gone, but Isaac still kindles the altar-fire. In a blind old age Isaac is gathered to his fathers, but Jacob worships “the fear of his father Isaac.” Jacob gathers up his feet in the bed, but Judah and Joseph, and the rest of them, continue as a salt in the earth. Oh, that it may be so in all our families! May we never lack a man to stand before the Lord God of Israel to testify for him! Among all the honors that God can put upon our households I think this is the greatest, that we should have in our families a succession of saints. It is no small privilege to look back and to remember our ancestors who feared the Lord: may we also look forward with hope that, if this dispensation lasts, there may still be some of our name, bearing our blood in their veins, who shall be called by sovereign grace into the service we have loved so well. Search beyond the congregation for new converts, but do not forget to look within your own doors for the largest accessions to the church. Hope that your sons and daughters after the flesh may be born into the one family in heaven and earth,” which bears the name of Jesus. Pray that your children may be God’s children, and may your prayer come up with acceptance into the ears of the Lord our God, whose mercy is on children’s children of them that fear him, and keep his covenant!
All the offices of “the church in the wilderness” were filled with fitting men. Behold Aaron, in his robes of glory and beauty! What a man is he to be the High Priest! With what grace and dignity he presides! He dies: will not the priesthood fail? No, my brethren. Yonder is Eleazar, who occupies his father’s place most worthily. Moses also passes away. There is none like Moses. He is king in Jeshurun, without peer or rival. The Jews have a tradition that when he was called to go up to the top of Nebo to die, the people followed him up the hill, the women beating on their breasts, and uttering bitter wailings, while the strong men bowed themselves with grief, and cried, “The father of the nation is to be taken away! Alas, what shall we do?” He was bidden to leave the people on the mountain side, and he went up alone to the place where Jehovah kissed away his soul, and so he passed into his rest. Truly it was a great loss, but the Lord found a man to follow Moses. Joshua was not equal to Moses in many things; and yet for the work he had to do he was a much more fit man than Moses. The times were red with war, and Joshua was more able than Moses to fight the Canaanites and conquer the land. Joshua was the man for the sword, as Moses had been the man of the book. And God will fill every office in his church, not as you and I might wish, but as his infinite wisdom determines. Wherefore let us be of good courage, and fear no lack.
At this second numbering, the people stood ready for greater work than they had ever done before. The first numbering found them fit for the wilderness: the second numbering found them ready for the capture of the goodly land and Lebanon. God had been preparing them, by forty years of marching, for their new enterprise, and for development into a nation. May it please the Lord to make his church ready for the coming of her Lord, and for the salvation of nations! If brighter days are dawning, the church will be prepared as a bride for her husband; and if tribulation is to come to try all the earth, she shall be strengthened as a martyr for the burning. The Lord doth keep her: lest any hurt her he will keep her night and day.
It was Israel’s joy that God’s love was not withdrawn from the nation. The Lord still owned the tribes as his people. His glory was still above the mercy-seat, and his fiery, cloudy pillar still guided their marchings or fixed their haltings. Still the manna dropped from heaven, and still they drank of the water from the smitten rock. Thus the Lord has a church still, and it is ever the same church, loved of her lord, indwelt by his Spirit, and dedicated to his praise. Let us take courage: the church is not destroyed. Many changes take place, and many sorrows are involved therein, but the church of God is as ever-living as her immortal Head, who has declared, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Still, her stars are the hope of the world’s night, and her angels are the heralds of the eternal morning. She follows the bleeding lamb, who is the doctrine of her teaching, the model of her acting, the glory of her hope.
III. Thirdly, let me bring before your minds THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF THE WORD OF GOD. This we perceive in the last verse. “For the Lord had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.”
Note how unchangeable are the threatenings of the Lord. Among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered. For the Lord had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness.” Take note of this, you that think God’s word can fail: ye know not what ye dream. His words of righteous wrath are not lost: they kill as with a two-edged sword. The verse says, There was not left a man of them.” Whom the Lord had condemned to die, nothing could keep alive. Therefore, do not imagine, O you that obey not the Lord, that you shall go unpunished!
The unbelievers were many, yet not one escaped. “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.” The rebels were a terribly large majority, but the crowds in the broad way make it none the safer. God has no respect for multitudes; “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” Here they outnumbered the faithful more than ten thousand times; and yet the justice of God did not spare one of them. “There was not left a man of them.” How can any of you hope to escape? “Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies.” The proudest sinner shall be laid low: the thunders of Jehovah shall smite down each individual transgressor, and no one shall go away free in the day of God’s wrath.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”