"Sacred Writings: A Meal That Makes You Hungrier" by Chuck Pike

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Well, good morning, everyone.

Welcome to Strength to Strength. It's wonderful to be gathered here virtually with you all once again here this morning. And we have Brother Chuck joining us from Woburn, not far up the road from where I'm at right now.

And I've been here for nine months, and I haven't visited him yet. I feel like that's a crime. I hope to fix that here in the next few weeks. And he's joining us to talk about—it's our final installment on the Sacred Writings series that started back in October.

And he's going to talk about, I think this is very fitting, a meal that makes you hungrier. And this series has been very enjoyable to talk about the Word of God and how we've got it, that we can trust it, that we know that this is the Word of God. And I know the first one we had, the first talk on this series was the revelation of Jesus Christ. And I know Brother Chuck will probably talk about how we can see Jesus Christ in the Scriptures and show people Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. So to begin this and end this with Jesus Christ is very fitting.

And the Word of God is quick and powerful and alive. And I know that's been my experience with the Bible in my journey. And I know that it has been for many of you, or all of you, who wouldn't be here today.

It is truly remarkable, the gift that God has given us in the written Word. And I'm so grateful that He's given this, with the accompaniment of the Holy Spirit, to interpret it for us and brothers who interpret it for us as well.

So before we get started, let's have a word of prayer.

Holy Father in heaven, we bow before You this morning. We're so grateful, Lord, for Your gift to us and Your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank You for His remarkable life, sinless life, living in power over sin and pushing back the powers of darkness. And thank You for His death and resurrection, that we too can die and have newness of life. Thank You for the apostles who heard the commission that Christ gave them and went into all the world and preached. Thank You for the things that they wrote in the New Testament. Thank You for all the prophets and men of God over the thousands of years who wrote down what was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that we have a compilation of writings today that is alive.

There is no other book on earth that touches the hearts of men like Your written Word. And thank You for it, Lord. Thank You for Brother Chuck. Thank You for the message that he has for us today. I pray that Your Spirit would be upon him and that You would give him words to say that would be honoring to You and that we could exalt our King, Jesus Christ, here again this morning. I just pray for each heart who is listening. I pray that the ground is soft and that we would be inspired anew to handle the Word with reverence and with diligence and with hunger.

We just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

You can go ahead, Brother Chuck. All right. I'm going to pray a little more too. Father in heaven, I pray that You'll open up our minds that we can see wonderful things in Your Word today. And please help me to teach clearly and accurately. And I pray this be a blessing in some way to every person who listens.

And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. The title, A Meal That Makes You Hungrier, and it's a provocative title. And I hope that that's what you come away with, that this is—it's really a joy to study the Scriptures, and it just continually should increase your desire to want more. A little overview of what I want to cover today: three parables. The great teacher liked to teach in parables, and they stick with you. And so I want to give you some things that have helped me over the years in terms of the framework for studying the Word of God and getting the most out of it, and a few comments on why this is worth it. And then talk about reading on three levels.

I'm going to take a test case from the book of Numbers. We just talked through that recently. I figure I'm going to take a book that nobody wants to tackle. And if you can do it with numbers, you can do it with anything, right? And then open up for questions and discussion at the end. First of all, first focus to me is I really believe my desire is for the class to be practical, not academic. I appreciate the academics that are out there, but Jesus is—I'm reminded that Jesus's disciples, most of them, the closest ones were fishermen, were laborers, that they're blue-collar guys that work with their hands, and that this is really—I'm inspired by Peter.

And I read through his first letter, how wonderfully he draws from all over the Old Testament to make his points, and that he had a great, great deep knowledge of the Scripture, deep practical knowledge of the Scripture, and he was a fisherman.

So this is the first parable that I want to talk about, is the parable of the enriched flour. Okay? And so I want to start off talking about

baking bread. All right? I learned how to bake bread in a co-op, and we would take the wheat berries and grind them up every night and bake the bread for the next morning. And so I learned how to bake using whole wheat, whole wheat berries and whole wheat flour that was freshly milled. And I learned over time that there's a big difference between whole wheat bread and the bread that most of us eat. And it goes back to the late 1800s, 1870s to 1890s, where they switched over from stone milling to using ceramic and steel mills, rollers.

And what they could do with this type of milling—now normally, the wheat berries last for quite a while, but once you break the bran, the outer shell away, it oxidizes quickly, and you lose a lot of the nutrients. Value of the wheat is lost quickly. And the other thing that happens is it starts to spoil if you don't refrigerate it. So what they discovered was that in milling the grain, they could separate the white starchy part from the bran and the germ. And this had a number of advantages. One was the flour was lighter. It rose more easily. So it was much easier to bake things like pastries and cakes. It was more attractive. It had a whiter color.

And it had a much longer shelf life. So it was good for production and storage and led to a lower cost in the flour. So those are all good things. And people like the nice, fluffy pastries, the croissants and the cakes, things like that.

But so here's what we end up with. Growing up as a child, my mother would make sandwiches out of Wonder Bread, which was nice and white and puffy. And I thought that's what bread was like until I discovered whole wheat bread. It's a completely different thing. So now what they didn't realize is that when they milled out the bran and the germ, that they were losing most of the nutrient value, the fiber, the trace minerals, and the B vitamins were removed from this milling process. And so what happened over the next few decades is that a number of diseases—berry-berry, pellagra, anemia—the number of diseases increased as a result of people not being properly nourished. And they didn't realize this until the early 1900s.

And they decided that they would correct this by enriching the flour, which is taking a few things that they lost. And they're like, I think there are 40 different vitamins, minerals that are in flour, the 44 that we need. And they took three or four of them, four or five of them, and they started putting them back into the white enriched flour. And the problem is that we didn't realize that God put a lot of things into the whole wheat that we need for life. And we didn't even know that we needed this. It took the sciences a few decades to figure that out. Now, so the application for this, to me, is a lot of churches, to me, a lot of Christians are kind of like the Wonder Bread version.

All right? So basically, they take the whole Bible and they say, "Well, this part, we don't need this part. We don't need that part. Let's just focus on the Gospels. Let's just focus on the book of Psalms." But we'll really neglect a major part of the Scriptures. And we need it all. And the thing is, we don't even understand why we need it all. I was in a church for many years. What they do at the beginning of the year, they'd say, "Okay, what do we think the people need?" And they pick which books. And it was always—they would come down with, "Well, people need evangelism. They need discipleship." It'd be the same three or four things of what do people need.

And they pick the verses to go around that and it'd be topically focused preaching. And I'd always raise my hand. Every year they asked a question. I'd say, "Well, why don't we just teach the entire Bible?" And they said, "Well, that's unrealistic." I said, "Well, we'll take our time. We can do this over a few years." And they said, "That's unrealistic. There's a lot of parts of it that don't apply that aren't that interesting. Let's just focus on the same things that we always focus on."

Someone who really inspired me is James A. Harding. He died just over 100 years ago. He was a famous preacher, and he's probably most famous for starting Christian colleges. And a lot of things I like about him. He's a good-hearted man. But when he died, one of his students gave the eulogy, and he said, "All the things that you appreciate him and he's famous for," he said, "The biggest thing that he did is that this man sent more people to reading the Bible than any other preacher. And he infused his own love and appreciation for the Word into those who came under his sway." So what he did was, as he was going around preaching, he would challenge people, and he'd start Bible reading clubs so people would have accountability with each other.

And he'd get everybody, wherever he went in his travels, to read the Bible every year. And he himself, in 1914, so it was eight years before he died, he said he'd read through the Old Testament 60 times and the New Testament 130 times. So he practiced what he preached, but he was a big advocate of, "We need the entire Bible." And he's left a legacy 100 years later in the churches of Christ, a very strong focus on study of the Bible. So some basic takeaways are from me, from the parable of the whole grain, the whole wheat here, is we need all of the Scriptures. There are things in it that we don't know that we need.

And when we start neglecting major parts of the Bible, we're going to end up with spiritual diseases of malnutrition. And I've seen that happen in churches that go both the Wonder Bread route and the whole grain route. Parable number two is the story of the man in the wilderness. And some people are going to say, "That's not a parable. That's a real story." Well, it is a real story, but there's a level of—there's a parable meaning that I believe is included in there that the early Christians saw. In Exodus chapter 16, I'm going to read from the Scriptures here.

So Exodus 14, we have the crossing of the Red Sea. In chapter 15, they celebrate that with the Song of Miriam. And then in Acts chapter 16, the people run into the first challenge. It says, I'm reading from the New King James Version. "And they journeyed from Elam, and all the congregation of children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they departed from Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The children of Israel said to them, 'Oh, that we had died in the land at the hand of our Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full.

You brought us out of the wilderness to kill the whole assembly with hunger.' And the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I'll rain bread from heaven for you.' And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. It shall be on the sixth day they shall prepare what they bring in. It shall be twice as much as they gather." And then down in verse 11, it's a continuation of the story, "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'I've heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, 'At twilight, you shall eat meat. In the morning, you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know I am the Lord your God.'

So it was, quail came in the evening and covered the camp, and in the morning, a dew lay all around the camp. And when the layers of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.

This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man gather it according to each one's need, one armor for each person according to the number of persons. Let every man take for those who are in his tent.' The children of Israel did so and gathered some more, some less. When they measured it by armors, he who gathered much had nothing left over. He who gathered little had no lack. Every man gathered according to each one's need. And Moses said, 'Let no one leave any of it till morning.' Notwithstanding, they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.

So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted. So it was on the sixth day they gathered twice as much, two armors for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses." So they had to gather it every morning, and they had to gather it in the morning before the sun became hot. So the details of the story I find interesting. They couldn't store it up for multiple days. So they'd be more efficient to gather it up, just do it once a week. But no, they had to gather it every day, except, of course, they couldn't work on the Sabbath.

So they had to get two days' worth on that day. And it says further on that it was very versatile. They could bake it in the oven, or they could boil it. And it appeared every day, except it didn't appear on the Sabbath on the seventh day. So it was a true miracle. People try to find a way that this was some natural phenomenon.

Natural phenomena don't occur for seven days and then disappear for one day, and occur for six days, and then occur for another six days for 40 years, and then stop. This is definitely a miracle.

So it was white flakes on the ground. And a little further on in chapter 16, it says that it tastes like something made with honey. So it had a pleasant, sweet taste to it. And Aaron was told to keep a pot of this manna for future generations along with the Ark of the Covenant as a reminder of how they were fed in the wilderness. And this sustained them for the entire 40 years that they were in the wilderness. Of course, the 40 years in the wilderness, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 10, is a type of the Christian life. So the people were in slavery in Egypt. They passed through the Red Sea. They're baptized into Moses.

Paul says 1 Corinthians 10, the first 13 verses. And then they go through the time of testing in the wilderness. So this is the food that sustained them in the wilderness, the wilderness representing the Christian life. And then those who were righteous made it all the way to the promised land and the next generation.

But the bread, this wonderful tasting, sweet, honey-type bread, it didn't really satisfy the people. So in Numbers chapter 11, it says that the mixed multitude, the people from Egypt who left with the Jews, miss the wonderful food that they had back in Egypt, all the onions and the leeks and the cucumbers, all the tasty variety that they had back in Egypt. And then they get the Israelites to complain about it as well. And so God is upset with that in Numbers chapter 11. And then Numbers chapter 21, that was near the beginning of the 40 years in the wilderness, near the end of the 40 years, Numbers chapter 21. I think this is after Aaron dies, so it's very close to the end.

The people are again complaining about the manna. They're bored, and they miss the variety of food that they had in Egypt. In Numbers 21, verse 5, it says, "The people spoke against God and against Moses, and they said, 'Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's no food, there's no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.'" So God was very upset about that.

And they get punished for that. I think that's the story of the bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness that Jesus refers to in John chapter 3, where the Lord sends venomous snakes to bite and kill the people. And of course, this all gets wrapped up in Moses's farewell speech in Deuteronomy.

In Deuteronomy, there's a retelling of the story of the Exodus and the famous statement in Deuteronomy chapter 8, verses 2 and 3, which is why this story is so important to us, where Moses says, "You shall," starting in Deuteronomy 8, verse 2, "You shall remember the Lord your God, how he led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you'd keep his commandments or not. So he humbled you, allowing you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord."

Of course, Jesus quotes this when he's tempted by Satan in the wilderness right after his baptism. Now, applications for us. First of all, if this is what the Lord is trying to tell us to pound into our minds, that this is the type of the time in the wilderness is the Christian journey is our life in this world here.

We need this food from God every single day. We can't gather it up once or twice a week and store it for a few days. It says that it had to be fresh. Otherwise, it would stink like something with it was stinking like it's a maggot-infested, disgusting mess.

A lot of people struggle. Say, "Well, I'm so busy. I have so many things to do in life." When things slow down, that's when I'm going to get into the Word of God. And I ask people, I say, "Well, did you have time to eat today? Were you so busy that you just didn't eat anything the whole day long?" Said, "Oh, I guess you do have enough time." And that's not the problem. It's because your stomach is telling you to stop what you're doing and eat, and you make time to eat physical food. But our spirits need it even more.

Another thing, it says that it was sweet to the taste. And I'm reminded of what it says in Psalm 119, that your word is like honey from the honeycomb.

People got bored with it.

A lot of Christians, they're on a journey. And after a few decades, they get bored. They want some variety. So let me read some other books. Or let me go and read some worldly literature. I'm just bored of eating the same food all the time. And they look back longingly on the food that they had in Egypt, which had more variety to it. And they want to go back to that.

Another thing I noticed here, it said they needed to gather it in the morning, that when the heat of the sun came, it faded away. And I've had arguments with people in the past about this. I said, "Does it matter if you have your time with the Lord in the morning or not?" And some people say, "Well, that's the best time to have it." Other people say, "Well, I'm kind of an evening person. I don't want to make a rule about that." But let's think about this.

The manna, you could bake it in an oven, and you could boil it. However, when the sun came out, it melted away. Now, think about that. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? Why would that be? Well, maybe the Lord's trying to teach us a lesson about something.

The wisdom of Solomon, which was in the original King James version of the Bible, it was taken out a little over 100 years ago. In chapter 16, there's a statement there where the writer says that this story about them having to gather it in the morning before the heat of the day was that the Lord was teaching us to rise early and give thanks to him. So those who are on the call, I don't have to rebuke anyone here. The call starts at 6:00 in the morning. So you're all early risers. And hopefully, you're praising God and getting in the Word of God and not just getting up early to milk the cows or take care of some other responsibilities that you may have in life.

But you're putting the Word of God first. So the challenge, I guess, is to those who are listening online after the lesson is posted, who didn't get up early, to take that very much to heart. And I'm also reminded of what David says in Psalm 5, verse 3. It says, "My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning, I will direct it to you, and I will look up." So there's a wonderful blessing that comes from starting our day off by partaking of the manna of God.

So as I mentioned here, this was a reminder that it's sweet, tastes like honey, and to get up early before the heat of the day, whenever that is. Another parable that's helpful to me is the story in Leviticus chapter 11 of the clean versus the unclean animals.

Leviticus chapter 11, starting in verse 1.

Now, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud, that you may eat.

Nevertheless, these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves. The camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you. The rock, hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you. The hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you. And the swine, although it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, it does not chew the cud. It is unclean to you. Their flesh you shall not eat. Their carcass you shall not touch. They are unclean to you." So very simple.

Among the mammals, anyway, the clean food that you could eat or touch would be split hooves and chews the cud. And one for two doesn't get you there. So I mean, a rabbit would be an example of an animal that chews the cud, but it doesn't have split hooves. It's got paws. Or on the other hand, a camel or a horse, it would chew the cud, but it's got a monolithic hoof. It doesn't have split hooves. So what does this have to do with us?

Several Christians commented on the significance of this. Now, we're not under the law of Moses. It says in Colossians 2 that the law was nailed to the cross, and we're not bound by the dietary requirements. It's very, very clear.

On the other hand, Paul also says in Colossians 2, verse 17, he says that the law was a shadow of things to come. So the law pointed and foreshadowed things that had been fulfilled in Christ. Now that the shadows have come, now the reality has come that the shadows have passed away. We don't have to follow the shadows. And he talks about the example of circumcision among the Jews, foreshadowing Christian baptism, putting away the flesh.

Now, think about all the places in Scripture that God uses animals to teach us lessons. It's really all over the place. It's, "Don't muzzle the ox while it's treading out the grain." Goes back to Deuteronomy 25. It's mentioned a few places in the New Testament. "Don't take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs," from Matthew 15, Jesus. "Go to the ant you sluggered," in Proverbs 6. "Go tell that fox," referring to Herod, "I sent you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves," Matthew chapter 10. And a very colorful one, as a dog returns to its vomit or a sow having washed, goes back to wallowing in the mire in 2 Peter chapter 2.

So now, pigs, as I mentioned to you, you can see here the little piggies. You have the cloven hooves, the split hooves, or the trotters that the pigs have. But do the pigs chew the cud? No. The pigs eat garbage. Right? So pig was an unclean animal. The Jews wouldn't eat it because they don't chew the cud. They'll eat anything, including garbage. On the other hand, the ruminants, the animals that chew the cud, like a cow or a sheep, I'm told that cows actually only have one stomach, but the stomach has four chambers in it. And there's this little diagram here that the cow can eat the grass and put it in the first chamber of its stomach.

And then later on, it will cough it up and chew it over and chew it over and then swallow it down again. So the—excuse me.

Now, is the Lord trying to communicate something to us here in the story of the clean versus the unclean animals? Irenaeus was a bishop of the church in Gaul. He's writing around the year 180. But Irenaeus is interesting to me because Irenaeus had been a student of Polycarp, who in turn was a student of the Apostle John. So he's one link removed from the Apostles.

And he discusses this whole story. This is in Anisean Fathers, book 5. I'm sorry, volume 1, page 534. And he discusses this, and he explains that the two requirements here—so the difference between the single hoof and the split hooves—he says the split hooves are those who believe in the Father and the Son. They're more sure-footed than the monolithic Jews who just believe in the Father.

And he says the chewing the cud, as you probably figured out, is those who devour the pure Word of God rather than the pigs that eat anything. They're not discriminating. The cows that will just eat the pure Word of God. And then during the day after eating it, they will cough it up and chew it and chew it and chew it again. All right? He said, "Now this is the clean animal. This is the lesson that you're supposed to learn, is that we are not like the Jews who they chew on the Word of God, but they only believe in the Father and not in the Son. That we believe in the Father and the Son, but we chew on the Word of God."

And this is a beautiful picture of meditating on the Word of God, a physical manifestation of this. And I think about Psalm 1, another great passage about the Word of God. "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. He'll be like a tree planted by rivers of water, brings forth its fruit in season. Whose leaf shall not wither, whatever he does, shall prosper." So this is the picture, is that we don't eat everything. We focus on the pure grass, the pure Word of God.

And we are designed to get all the nourishment out of it. We've got to be chewing on it during the day. We've got to be meditating on it. This is a beautiful picture here. And the other early Christians made similar comments on this, Clement of Alexandria being one of them. So don't be like the pig that eats garbage.

Be like the ruminants. Seek the pure grass of the Word. And then after eating it, regurgitate it, chew on it throughout the day to get all the nourishment out of it. So this is a more laborious process. And this is what makes the difference, is are you ruminating on the Word of God?

So I mentioned here, God uses animals to teach us. Sheep among wolves, illustration. God uses animals throughout the Scriptures to teach us all kinds of lessons. And perhaps this is another one the early Christians certainly thought it was. So why is this so important? I mean, just want to hit a few things here why this is so important to me.

The knowledge of the Word of God and really deep knowledge of the Old Testament prophecies was how the world was evangelized in the beginning. So in the book of Acts, we see this throughout the book of Acts, that this is how the Apostles converted people. And people say, "Well, that's because they were reaching out to Jews." However, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that the gospel that he preached to them was that Christ died for our sins in fulfillment of the Scriptures. He was buried and he rose on the third day in fulfillment of the Scriptures. And the fulfillment of Scriptures means in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. That was the gospel that was handed down to the Corinthian church, which it says in the beginning of chapter 12 was predominantly a Gentile church.

And look at the sins they were involved in, their Gentile sins. So for evangelism, this is one thing. And I see this really inspired Justin Martyr, his first apology here, which is in We Don't Just Speak Great Things, We Live Them, modern translation of that. And where he goes after the Romans by, and he uses the proof of the fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament Scriptures, which they would have access to reading the Septuagint in Greek. So he talks about that. Justin Martyr's dialogue with Trypho, which is a devastating exposition of the Old Testament. I think Eusebius's proof of the gospel, some things from earlier times that really inspire me and call me higher to be able to powerfully use the Scriptures.

If you know the Bible well, the Old Testament prophecies, and I've seen this used to great effect of truth-seeking people from even from other cultures, from China, who have been impacted by the proof of the gospel because they see that this is not just based on a feeling, that this is fulfilled prophecies from hundreds of years beforehand. So evangelism, it's extremely important for gaining wisdom.

And I'm reminded of what it says in Psalm 119, that I have more wisdom. In verse 97, it says, "How I love your law, it's my meditation all the day. You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies. They're ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers. For your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts." So I'm getting on in life here. So I got some weight in the beard.

And should I live so long, I'll hit 70 years old this year. And so I'm in a church where I am, at this point in time, by far the oldest person in the church. A lot of the younger guys come to ask advice from me. And they say, "Well, it's because you're older. You're old enough to be my father, or in some cases, my grandfather." And as I tell them, I said, "Look, I know a lot of old people that are fools that don't have much wisdom at all." So the question isn't, "How old are you?" It's, "What were you doing during all those decades that you were in the process of getting old?" If you spent your time meditating on the Word of God, now you've got some wisdom to share with people.

So this is where we go if we want to become wise, wiser than the ancients, wiser than the elders, wiser than the teachers. We go straight to the Word of God. Of course, it's a representation of Satan challenging Jesus to cast himself down from the heights of the temple.

And I think about how Jesus had the Word of God written in his heart. I think of how Jesus used the Scriptures when he was tempted by Satan as a wonderful example of how we should respond by memorizing the Scripture and calling it back. There's nothing quite like that. Of course, Ephesians 6 talks about the sword of take up the sword of the Spirit, the offensive weapon in the battle against the forces of evil.

Challenge to persevere in the faith. I was a rower a little earlier in life. And what we do to get our perseverance up is we run up and down the stadium stairs, which is a brutal exercise to teach you perseverance. Perseverance is even more important. The spiritual realm is a representation of the Exodus journey. And 600,000 adults, males, crossed out of Egypt. But out of that group, only two from that first generation made it all the way to the promised land, Joshua and Caleb, which is a sobering story for us that the challenge is not just becoming Christians, but to remain faithful to the very end. That's a story that had a great impact on my own journey.

Here in Massachusetts, Sam, you recognize this. These are the three-decker houses. Right? I live in one. I live in a two-family house here. And so this is a common style of architecture all around the Boston area. It was the three-deckers. And so I use this as an illustration to me to when we're meditating on the Word of God and we're chewing it, I really look at this as there are three levels when we're studying Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, which is three-quarters of the Bible. First level is the basic storyline. Everybody gets that. And then the second level, the second and third level, that's where you got to do the chewing throughout the day to really get the most out of it.

Second and third level. Second level is practical moral lessons for us contained in the story. You got to work the story to find out what those are. And then the third one, not in every story, but actually in quite a few, is the foreshadowings. There's things in the stories in the Old Testament that are foreshadowings in the New Testament. So to help you with the second and third levels, Jesus and the Apostles will sometimes go into that. It'll explain it to us. That's the first place to look. Early Christians will sometimes have really good insights into these things from their own meditation, from what they've learned. And then there's just chewing on it yourself and working with the text, working with the Scriptures of reading it in the morning and thinking about it all throughout the day.

All right, how does this pertain to my life? What can I learn from this? And I'm reminded of what Paul says in Romans. He said, "Everything in the past written to teach us." So I think he quotes from Psalm 69 there. But his attitude was, "All these things, there are things there to teach us. We just have to work it to find out what those things are."

So as I mentioned, in my 20s, I was tremendously impacted by the story of the Exodus journey. In my late 20s, I took a class on, and it was an Old Testament survey class. And I went through the Old Testament and explained that the whole Exodus journey, as Paul points this out in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, it's also alluded to in Hebrews 3 and 4. And there's one line in Jude as well, that this is a foreshadowing of the Christian life, is that the people were in slavery. They passed through the water. And it says that they were all, Paul says they were all baptized into Moses and the cloud and the sea. And then they're traveling through the wilderness.

They all ate the spiritual food. They drank the spiritual drink. They drank from the rock that followed them. That rock was Christ. But it says, "But God was not pleased with Moses, and they fell in the wilderness." And these things are an example to us. So this is the story. We want to make it to the promised land just because you're in the church, you're baptized, you're eating the spiritual food and drinking the spiritual drink. There's no guarantee that you're going to make it to the end. You really got to watch out for the sins. He mentions four or five in 1 Corinthians 10. So this story made a great impact on me. And sometimes in our house church, we really focus on expository teaching.

It's probably no surprise, given my convictions about these things, that I don't know what we need. So let's just cover everything. That's my desire, is let's cover as much of the Scriptures as possible. And last year, it really struck me. We need to go through the book of Numbers because of the 40 years in the wilderness, almost all of it takes place in the book of Numbers.

The middle part of this journey here, really from the time that they decamp from Mount Sinai until the death of Moses, that's really all covered in the book of Numbers, about 38 years right there. So I thought, "If this is the foreshadowing of the Christian life, we better know these stories."

And I think Numbers is a great example because Numbers is probably the last book that most Christians want to read or teach. I mean, even the name sounds boring. I mean, it starts off with the census. It ends with the census. And I think, "What does this have to do with my life?" And actually, even the census is important because it really drives home the point. They counted the number of people who came out of Egypt. It was over 600,000. They took a census of them, and only two made it from that first generation of the promised land, which drives that home. So this is the question. We're going through the book of Numbers and chewing on it, meditating on it, taking it a chapter at a time or one topic at a time, going through all the way through the book of Numbers.

In Numbers chapter 9, we run into the story of the pillar of cloud and fire. And it says that when the pillar of cloud, in fact, it was a cloud by day, fire by night, when it lifted, this is first introduced in Exodus. I think it's Exodus chapter right around chapter 14, where after the Passover lamb is slain, that's when the pillar appears. And it leads the people to the water. It leads them and protects them through the water. It separates the people of God from the Egyptians. And then in the promised land, Numbers chapter 9, it explains that when the pillar of cloud and fire lifted, this told them where to set up camp and where they were going to have the tabernacle, and they're going to locate themselves around it.

But when it lifted, they would pack up and get ready to follow it, and they'd go wherever it went. And then when it stopped and came down again, they would set up camp there. So this was the pillar of cloud and fire. And what's the significance for us? Well, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. Well, what does that make us think of? Jesus says in John chapter 3, "Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he can't see the kingdom of God." So the water is the Red Sea, as Paul points out. And the spirit of cloud and fire would be representing the Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit doesn't show up until doesn't appear until after the Passover lamb is slain. That's similar to what Jesus said, "I've got to go so that the Holy Spirit can come," and leads them through the water and leads them all the way on their journey to the promised land. So what does it tell us about the importance of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the one given to us to guide us all the way to the end of our journey. So this is something very practical to me. And I was from a church tradition that really downplayed the importance and significance of the Holy Spirit. So this really helps me to appreciate visually the importance of the Spirit.

Numbers chapter 13 is the famous story they send the 12 spies out into Canaan. There's a little line in there that I had missed, and I benefited from the early Christians.

It gives the names of all 12 of the spies. And one of them is Hosea, the son of Nun. And it says in Numbers 13, "And to Hosea that God gave the name Joshua." Of course, if the early Christians are reading this in Greek, it says Jesus. So it's like, "Whoa, he's given the name Jesus. This is the successor to Moses. Moses will not be able to complete the job. Jesus will be the one to finish it. He's going to be the closer. He's going to be the finisher." All right?

Little heads up here. So that was significant. I was reading it early. Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trifo, he's explaining this to Trifo. He says, "Well, why do you think he gave him the name Jesus to the guy who'd be the successor of Moses?" So that's one thing. And then the other thing to learn here too is that this is the separation. Joshua and Caleb were faithful to God. They believed that God could do it. They saw the giants that were there. They weren't just optimists, but they really believed that God could deliver. God said he was going to give them the promised land. They believed that God could do it. Whereas the other 10 said, "This is impossible."

And they gave up, and they said, "Let's go back to Egypt." And they rebelled. So there's some tremendous practical lessons in this story. But we also see the name of Jesus being revealed in Numbers chapter 13. Numbers chapter 20, Moses strikes the rock. Now, Moses in the book of Exodus, Moses struck the rock and no problem. So here in Numbers 20, God tells him to speak to the rock, and he strikes it again, which is just what he did the first time. There's no problem with that. And God is so upset that he tells Moses and Aaron, "Because of this, they're going to die in the wilderness, and they won't see the promised land." And Moses later on begs the Lord, "Please, let me go into the promised land."

And the Lord says, "No, you're going to see it from a distance, but you won't because of what you did here." So I'm thinking, "Wow, Moses was a great guy. And he was faithful to God. Why was God so upset about striking the rock?" Because the first time it was okay.