Expository Sermon on Numbers 9 and 10
by Maylan Schurch
Bellevue Seventh-day Adventist Church 3/1/2025
©2025 by Maylan Schurch
(To watch this entire worship service, click the link just below:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK2H6Y0pTbo&t=4943s
Please open your Bibles to Numbers chapter 9.
This past December, as I was deciding what to do for my sermons in 2025, I got an email from Kursten Patrick. She shared with me a link to the Blue Letter Bible website’s chronological Bible reading plan. If you follow it schedule, you will not only read the Bible entirely through in 2025, would you will find out the stories are carefully rearranged so that you will be reading them in the chronological order those stories happened.
For example, some of the stories in first and second Kings are repeated in Chronicles. Also, during the adventures of David, certain Psalms that he wrote during those stories are inserted there.
One thing that’s happening to me as I read these passages – and this always happens when I read the Bible through – is that I feel a greater empathy for God then I might feel reading the Bible in another way. However God acts, or reacts, I will have already read the context which leads up to what He does or allows, and this often answers questions I might’ve had.
So I would suggest that you try this plan out. Don’t feel guilty at all if you’re just jumping into it now. Just pick up where the schedule says to, and soon you will be enjoying the Bible, probably a lot more than you ever have before.
And don’t be shy about skipping passages if they are too boring. Skip the parts that seem to be boring to you, but when you come to a story, slow down and read it.
In your bulletin each Sabbath, on the announcement page, you’ll see a paragraph that starts “Join the Plan!” And that’s where you’ll find the reading passages for the upcoming week.
As I read through Numbers this week, I actually found it was a bit more interesting than Leviticus, which I read the week before. Sure, in Numbers you still have lists of people and quantities of items. But you also have stories. Lois Meythaler told us one of the stories that happened later in Numbers, beyond this week’s reading plan limits.
But as I read through Numbers 9 and 10 this week, I learned three life principles , three reminders, that are crucially important for us, right here in 2025. Because you and I are not living in easy times. We are living in unsettled, uncertain, chaotic times.
Last night I read aloud to Shelley an opinion article from Religion News Service site.
The article was by a Christian teacher and writer named Karen Swallow Prior, and the article was called, “Where Are the Grownups?” The article’s summary sentence says, “Childlike behavior among adults, especially those in positions of authority and power, is off the charts right now.” In the article, Karen Prior quotes First Corinthians 13, verse 11: Paul says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
I think it’s even more important than it’s ever been before to keep our maturity and our spiritual footing steady as the months slip along under our feet. And I think that the principles we will learn in these two chapters will help us.
To set the stage, it’s right around 1500 BC. The Israelites are still at the foot of Mount Sinai – in fact, they actually remained right there for a little over a year. Let’s pick up the story in Numbers chapter 9, verse 15:
Numbers 9:15 – 16 [NKJV]: Now on the day that the tabernacle was raised up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the Testimony; from evening until morning it was above the tabernacle like the appearance of fire. So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night.
And as we know from other scriptures, God Himself was in that cloud. His presence was right there. In the morning, that cloud shaded the people from the hot desert sun, and at night the cloud glowed like a pillar of fire.
If you taking down sermon points, here comes what you might call Sermon Point One. As I say, in this part of Numbers, I found three important reminders. Here’s the first one.
I need to remember that God is near, day and night.
And He was. The people could see that He was near. No matter where they were, there in the camp, they could look up over their shoulder and see that cloud. They knew God was in that cloud, because when He wanted to talk with Moses, the cloud descended toward the door of the tabernacle. And the tabernacle was located right in the center of the camp, so nobody could miss God’s presence.
And at night, as people were trying to get to sleep after a busy day, even with their tent-flaps closed they could see the orange glow of the pillar of fire, and they knew that God was standing watch over the camp. God gave the gift of His presence to His people in ways there could be no mistake about. God was there, day and night.
Well, that was then. This is now. No divine cloud hovers above us in the sky. No blazing night-time column of fire illuminates our streets. Is God still with us, day and night?
Many Bible stories show that He is, and many Bible verses say the same, all the way down to Jesus’ promise in Matthew 18 verse 20: “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” And in the very last part of the very last verse in Matthew, Matthew 28:20: Jesus says, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
And this is good to know. Because in the book of Numbers, God was leading His people to the promised land. And here in 2025, God is leading His faithful people to a far better and brighter Promised Land – His heavenly kingdom!
Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if we did have some sort of physical evidence of God’s presence? When you think about the people in the book of Numbers, they didn’t even have a written Bible at that point. Moses either had already written, or would write, the stories and truths in Genesis. He certainly taught them truths in Genesis, but they couldn’t follow a Bible reading plan because there wasn’t a personal printed Bible that everyone could page through. But Psalm 119:105 says about the Bible, “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” And over in 2 Peter 1:19 it talks about the brightness of Bible prophecy: “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place . . .” So your Bible is a light-source showing God’s presence.
And speaking of lights, in John 8:12 Jesus claimed to be the “Light of the world.” And in one of the Bible’s most astonishing promises, in Matthew 5, starting with verse 14, Jesus says to us: ““You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
So of course God is brightly visible today. Jesus’ light reflects out into your world through you! You can be the evidence that God is near. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” “All around the neighborhood, I’m gonna let it shine.” “Let it shine ‘til Jesus comes . . .”
But let’s go back to Numbers chapter 9 for another encouraging reminder about God.
Numbers 9:17 – 23: Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, after that the children of Israel would journey; and in the place where the cloud settled, there the children of Israel would pitch their tents. At the command of the LORD the children of Israel would journey, and at the command of the LORD they would camp; as long as the cloud stayed above the tabernacle they remained encamped. Even when the cloud continued long, many days above the tabernacle, the children of Israel kept the charge of the LORD and did not journey. So it was, when the cloud was above the tabernacle a few days: according to the command of the LORD they would remain encamped, and according to the command of the LORD they would journey. So it was, when the cloud remained only from evening until morning: when the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they would journey; whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud was taken up, they would journey. Whether it was two days, a month, or a year that the cloud remained above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would remain encamped and not journey; but when it was taken up, they would journey. At the command of the LORD they remained encamped, and at the command of the LORD they journeyed; they kept the charge of the LORD, at the command of the LORD by the hand of Moses.
Moses seems to have thought this point was really important, because he keeps emphasizing it. What was that point? It is Sermon Point Two. What else does Numbers 9 teach us about God?
I need to remember that God is near, day and night – and I need to remember to let God lead, no matter what.
I grew up in and around Redfield, South Dakota. Throughout the years that I was with the family, Dad moved us three times. All those moves were for excellent reasons, but they meant leaving the familiar and getting used to the new.
The first move happened when I was about five, and Dad wanted to relocate down closer to the Seventh-day Adventist elementary school, where he and Mom planned to enroll me and my siblings. My parents weren’t Adventists at the time, and they puzzled and alarmed their Wesleyan Methodist church friends with their decision, but my parents believed it was the right one.
The second time dad moved us was to relocate us a mile west of town, on prairie land with no trees. And the third time he moved us was to higher ground across the highway from where we had been living, because a flood came through and filled up our basement.
All through the Bible, God led people from one place to another. It started with Him shooing Adam and Eve out of Eden. He relocated Noah and his family and all those animals in a boat, and then down to where He wanted them. Then Abraham, then Joseph, then Moses. You can probably list all those relocation stories easily as I can. Jesus came down from heaven to earth, and once He strapped on His sandals, He never stayed still, but traveled. And when He discovered people who agreed with Him, He urged them to follow Him still further.
Let God lead, no matter what. What do we do now that we been reminded of this? Well, we need to develop patience to wait on the Lord, just as those Israelites had to wait – for long periods or short. Or just overnight – for that cloud to point the way.
And we also need to ask the Lord to lead us to people who need us. We need to ask him to lead us in ways that best suit our personality. I could never be a Paul, or the disciple Peter. But remember the disciple Andrew, who never made boisterous speeches but who quietly got acquainted with the people behind the scenes, and introduced other disciples to Jesus, as well as a little boy who happened to have five pita breads and a couple of cooked fish in his lunch basket.
Let’s look at one more piece of encouragement, this time from the next chapter, Numbers 10.
Numbers 10:1 – 8: And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camps. When they blow both of them, all the congregation shall gather before you at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. But if they blow only one, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel, shall gather to you. When you sound the advance, the camps that lie on the east side shall then begin their journey. When you sound the advance the second time, then the camps that lie on the south side shall begin their journey; they shall sound the call for them to begin their journeys. And when the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow, but not sound the advance. The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets; and these shall be to you as an ordinance forever throughout your generations.
God seems to have a special relationship with trumpets. Back in Exodus 19, when He summoned the people near Mount Sinai so He could speak to them, God sounded a trumpet, loud and long. Trumpets were played during the various feasts.
But here in Numbers 10, the trumpets were used to lead people forward to the Promised Land. The cloud would move, and then at least one of the trumpets would sound, and people would march out of, on the next adventure.
Let me give you Sermon Point Three, and then we’ll talk about it. What’s something else God wants us to remember?
I need to remember that God is near, day and night. I need to remember to let God lead, no matter what. And I need to remember to be ready for the trumpet.
What trumpet is that? Jesus describes it for us in Matthew 24, starting with verse 30: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for that trumpet to sound. In a small South Dakota prairie cemetery, a mile from the nearest town, cornfields and wheatfields all around it, my dad and mom lie in side-by-side caskets.
But one day, and I hope it’s soon, a silvery, insistent trumpet-note will come down from the sky. It will pierce the sod, and enter those caskets, and then those graves will explode, and that pair of farm kids will leap out of those graves.
And their feet probably won’t even touch the cemetery grass. Because Paul continues the story in First Thessalonians 4, starting with verse 15: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Do you want to be ready for that trumpet? “I want to be ready when Jesus comes . . . earth’s pleasures grow dim, as I’m waiting for Him, Lord keep me ‘til Jesus comes.”
But until He comes, God will be with us, taking care of us. That’s what our closing song reminds us. My Mom and Dad knew this song well. Let’s stand and sing it together.
“God will take care of you.” – 99