There are many lessons for us in this book of Moses. (NIV version used throughout unless otherwise stated) The book of Leviticus had to be written first to give the Levites their marching orders before they walked them out in the book of Numbers. (Photo of tabernacle at night with its pillar of fire, built in book of Exodus; covering dyed red, Ex. 26:14)
1. God knows our names. In the first chapter, vv. 4-5, God tells Moses the names of 12 men to help him. Of all the thousands of people under Moses’ command, God gave him 12 specific names.
2. God knows if we have leadership ability. (Numbers 1:16-17) The above 12 men were “the leaders of their ancestral tribes. They were the heads of the clans of Israel. v. 17 Moses and Aaron took these men whose names had been given….”
3. Ministry is both a responsibility and a gift from God.
Responsibility –
Numbers 18:1ff [to Aaron, brother of Moses] …You, your sons…are to bear the responsibility…v.3…be responsible…v.5 You are to be responsible.
(Additional notes below on “being responsible.”)
Gift –
v.7 …I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift…
4. We should give our BEST to God. Numbers 18:29 “You must present as the LORD’s portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you.”
As a teenager, I often sang the hymn from our church hymnal, “Our Best” by S. C. Kirk.1 Its words taught me well. They are worth citing here:
Hear ye the Master’s call,
“Give Me thy best!”
For, be it great or small,
That is His test.
Do then the best you can,
Not for reward,
Not for the praise of man,
But for the Lord.
CHORUS
Every work for Jesus will be blest,
But He asks from everyone His best.
Our talents may be few,
These may be small,
But unto Him is due
Our best, our all.
The editors of our hymnal were willing to include another hymn with the same theme. It was “Give of Your Best to the Master” by H. B. G., music by Mrs. Charles Barnard.
Give of your best to the Master;
Naught else is worthy His love;
He gave Himself for your ransom,
Gave up His glory above:
Laid down His life without murmur,
You from sin’s ruin to save;
Give Him your heart’s adoration,
Give Him the best that you have.
Give of your best to the Master;
Give of the strength of your youth;
Clad in salvation’s full armor, Join the battle for truth.
5. We may pray for a successor when our season of service in a particular area is over. Moses knew his time of leadership was coming to an end soon. He prayed for a successor.
Numbers 27:15-16 “Moses said to the LORD, ‘May the LORD, the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.’ ”
6. Without God’s protection, a nation is vulnerable. Joshua knew this principle. Numbers 14:9b “…Their protection is removed from them and the LORD is with us….”
7. The decisions of one generation will affect its posterity. This is taught throughout the book of Numbers.
8. God will triumph in the end. Numbers 14:21 “AS TRULY AS (1) I LIVE [just as truly], (2) all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. ESV (Emphasis mine)
Additional thoughts on “Being Responsible” – subtopic from lesson #3 above:
The mantle of responsibility that rested upon the Levites never lifted. They were living sacrifices, accepted as the “first-born” offering. In I Chronicles 9, words depicting this mantle of responsibility are throughout the chapter. (Emphasis mine)
I Chronicles 9:
9 - were heads of families (Being “head” of anything carries responsibilities.)
17 – The gatekeepers… (“Keeping” anything, like gates, etc., implies oversight, responsibility.)
18 - …being stationed at….
19 – just as their fathers had been responsible for guarding the entrance to the dwelling of the LORD.
20 – Eleazar was in charge of the gatekeepers, and the LORD was with him.
22 - …The gatekeepers had been assigned to their positions of trust by David and Samuel the seer.
23 - …were in charge of guarding…
25 - …Their brothers…had to…share their duties…
26 - …were entrusted with the responsibility…
27 - …stationed…, they had to guard it; and they had charge of the key for opening it each morning.
[An aside: Duty can be daily, routine, repetitive, but still a God-ordained assignment. Zechariah in the New Testament was doing a routine duty when Gabriel visited him with news of John the Baptist’s coming birth.]
29 – Others were assigned to take care of…
31 - …was entrusted with the responsibility for baking the offering bread. [Someone had to do it.]
33 - …musicians…stayed…were exempt from other duties because they were responsible for the work day and night.
Levitical responsibility is a theme in many other places in the Old Testament.
- See I Chronicles 15:22 – “Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it.” [Gifting recognized and used.]
- See I Chronicles 6:48-49 – “Their fellow Levites were assigned to all the other duties of the tabernacle, the house of God. But Aaron and his descendants were the ones who presented offerings on the altar….”
- See II Chronicles 23:18, duties still in place successive generations.
- See II Chronicles 29:25-26 & Ezra 3:10-11, duties prescribed by David, prophets Gad, Nathan, & Samuel. (Samuel listed above in I Chr. 9:22.)
“The firstborn of both man and beast was considered as belonging to God…. Later the Levites were substituted for the Israelites’ firstborn, Num. 3:12, 41, 46; 8:13-19.”
We are now the church of the first-born. (Hebrews 12:23) When we are born again into God’s family, we inherit certain responsibilities as well. We are God’s, not our own. (I Cor. 6:19-20)
God and the populace in general expected more of the Levites. Notice how they stood out from the crowd in Nehemiah 9:38; 10:8, 9, 28, 34, 37-39 and chapter 12. King Abijah scolded a backslidden king for driving away Levites (II Chronicles 13).
We, too, are held to a higher standard and should feel some weight of our charge. President George W. Bush felt a God-given charge to public leadership and wrote his autobiography about it. He borrowed his title (A Charge to Keep) from Charles Wesley’s thoughts in his famous hymn, “A Charge Have I to Keep.” Like President Bush, we need to find our place to serve and give it our best.
1The Broadman Hymnal, Ed. by B. B. McKinney, Broadman Press, Nashville, TN 1940, p. 343, p. 366.
2Cruden, Alexander. Cruden’s Complete Concordance of the Old and New Testaments. New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1949.