Fighting the Spiritual Battle to Plant the Banner of Christ (Numbers 2:1-16)
We will share the Word of God today from Numbers 2. If you just look at Numbers by itself, it may be hard for us to realize the point and direction of God. Moses wrote down the Penteteuch as one book, and all the way from Genesis to Deuteronomy, the book was written as one. It wasn’t written in five discrete parts, but they were titled later on as “Genesis,” etc. Then, of all the books of the Penteteuch, what is Moses telling us? This is how we properly receive the message God desires of us.
In Genesis, God created the entire world and he created mankind and gave us the covenant. Because we failed that covenant, mankind fell into curses, so God gave mankind a new covenant in Genesis 3:15. God is a God of the covenant, and God isn’t a god of our creation. God is a god of the covenant and God is the god of His Word, and even now, God is working with His Word. Wherever the Word of God is working, the work of the Holy Spirit follows. Where the Word of God is absent, the darkness works. If the Word of God is not in your heart, your heart is being ruled by darkness. If the Word of God is in your heart, then no matter what you face there is an answer and a blessing.
God called Abraham and promised to send them a messiah through that family line. Joseph held onto that covenant and went into Egypt. Because of Joseph, Jacob’s entire family of 70 people went into Egypt. After Joseph died, they lost hold of the covenant and became weak. When mankind becomes weak in the Gospel, they become physical: the evidence we’ve become physical is that all we know and care about is money, success, and the food that we eat, so we follow the things that unbelievers do, because unbelievers care about those things even more. That’s an idol.
We don’t have to serve idols, but we’re in a situation where we have no choice but to do that, and that’s what happens when we lose hold of God’s word and that’s why they suffered for 400 years. Even now, the reason Christians are suffering in America is because of idols. Instead of holding onto God, they’re holding onto idols. What is an idol? In Exodus 20, God gives the Israelites the 10 Commandments and tells us accurately “I am the LORD your God who freed you from slavery from Egypt,” in other words, God is saying He is the only One Who can solve the fundamental source of all problems. We have to solve the principal source of our problems but instead we try to solve the problems we see with our eyes as a result.
“You shall have no other gods before Me,” and He tells us, “You shall not make for yourselves an image or an idol.” What is an idol? It’s a channel through which another god works. An idol is not simply a powerless image, but it is a channel through which another god is receiving the glory from people and manipulates the people, then another god will work. Then, what is the deep center of that idol? Any heart that isn’t centered on believing in God and instead lives for themselves is an idol. Because we don’t believe in God, we have to serve something else for my own benefit.
In Exodus 20, God says that idol worshippers are those who hate Him. We think we’ve never hated God, but these are the words God gives to the Israelites. Serving idols is what it means to hate God. There are things I need for myself, and those can become an idol because Satan uses them to enslave us, with things like food, pride, and my success. God lays His judgment upon the next generations upon those who hate Him. These are not words to unbelievers, but He is talking to believers. He should say this to unbelievers, but why does He say these words to believers? It’s because the way that we reject God is by serving idols.
In Colossians 3:5, Jesus came to this earth to tell us that greed is sin. Why is greed equivalent to sin? Greed is what we have when we don’t believe in God. If we do believe in God, there’s nothing to be greedy about. If we don’t believe in God, we have to believe in ourselves, so we have an endless greed of trying to fill ourselves, and that’s an idol: we’re not satisfied with God. We need to be satisfied with just being a child of God, but we’re not.
He is the LORD our God who set us free from slavery in Egypt, but we’re not satisifed with that. “I believe in God,” I’m not sure about that, but you’re not satisfied, so that’s why you’re greedy. When are you greedy? Greed continues to come out when you’re not satisfied. If God is perfectly saved and guiding us step by step to heaven, we must be satisfied with that; there’s nothing to be greedy about. But Satan knows this and works upon us saying, “You can be like God, you can decide what is good and evil.” These are all channels of Satan. All you need to do is go before the word of God but instead, something else enters into you. We must be satisfied with only God who saved us, but because we’re not satisfied, we’re filled with resentment.
God gives the judgment to 3-4 generations to people who disobeyed God after they exodus from Egypt, but even before God gave judgment too. Why do Christians keep failing today? It’s because they do things that cause failure. What did they do so badly that they failed? They served idols, they live their walk of faith holding onto idols that are visible, and until you let go of that idol, you’ll continue to fail. That’s the reason God gave the 10 disasters to Egypt. Where did He put the disasters? Upon the idols.
You can never escape from Satan’s authority. Only when we apply the blood of the Passover Lamb will the disasters of death and sin pass over us. Even if someone is alive, in reality, they’re actually dead. What is the state of a dead person? They have no hope in life. Life is suffering; it’s better for them to die, honestly, why? Because they’ve lost hold of God’s covenant. There’s nothing above the blood of Jesus, but they hold onto everything except that. They’ve applied the blood and escaped, but they fail again because it’s not “only,” but it’s just “barely.”
God actually led the Israelites out of Egypt and said, “The method to be with me is the Tabernacle.” If God brought you out of Egypt, then the way to be with God is to do Tabernacle worship. He tells us through Leviticus, “this and this is what you must do and what I will do.” It all seems very complicated, but the bottom line is, the way for God to be with mankind is through worship and sacrifices. What does it mean for God to be with us? It means, the way for God to be with us is through worship. That is when God promises to work upon our worship with the Holy Spirit and His Word, so He is telling us He will be with us through His Word, “I will guide you through My Word.” When the Israelites lived in Egypt, they were not being led by God word but by idols, but God’s Word is power. But because they were not able to receive that, even after the Exodus, their lives were destroyed.
What is Numbers? Now that they’ve escaped from Egypt, they’re counting up the people from each tribe. They’re not doing it for tax purposes, but Numbers 2 shows the counting of people in each tribe so he can give them each a plot of land as they’re about to go into the land of Canaan. Why do you think God did it like this? Why is God so controlling? Why couldn’t God just let the Israelites live like when they lived in Egypt eating and living and doing what they want, living however they want to live. Why does God keep bothering us, telling us to worship? The fact that it’s already bothersome for you means there’s something in your heart that leaves you no choice but to fail.
The method for God to be with us is through worship, and specifically speaking, He is with us through our thoughts and through the Word, and the definition of a saved child of God is to live according to the Word, but no matter what, Satan disturbs that no matter what happens Satan distracts you with different forms, then what happens? The characteristic is that you always worry about what you eat. That’s not an original standard, we’re not originally created to wonder what we’re going to eat or drink, but if you’re not able to worship, you have to worry about what to eat. That’s why the Israelites always complained to God about what they were eating and drinking.
There’s no end to the eating. If they eat something good then they want more of it, and it’s almost the level of an animal. These aren’t the complaints of children; these are the complaints of adults. They want to eat what they ate in Egypt, it’s always about food. “Where shall we eat today, where do we want to eat today” it’s always about food. If you do this for 365 days a year, then you are constantly talking about what you want to eat but you’re not interested in the Word of God today. You’re not worried about receiving the word of God, “I don’t want to eat that, I want to eat better than that, do I really have to eat the same thing every day? Manna? Isn’t there some meat?” Then God gives them quail, but do you think they were satisfied? If you’re not satisfied with God, then you’ll never be satisfied. God gives them water, but that’s what they were always doing. They wanted to live exactly how they lived as slaves in Egypt, and that’s why they faced disasters, so then they worship idols again by creating the golden calf, and that’s why 3000 people died.
Why do you think the people of God have to become like that? It’s because they lose hold of God’s Word. God gives them the Word through Moses, but they don’t listen to that. They try to live according to the way they used to live before. Even if someone gives the Gospel to a legalistic person, they’ll continue to live as a legalistic person. Based on prosperity faith will keep on asking for physical blessings. If people with unhealthy mysticism receive the gospel, they will keep on trying to experience God with something that satisfies the,and tangible. When you come to worship you need to come with sincerity and experience, “This is what it means for God to be with me through the Word.” If this doesn’t come to your spirit then you will move according to the state of your spirit; in other words, you’ll move according to your thoughts, and if the devil controls your thoughts, you’ll be dragged around by your thoughts, so even after receiving salvation, people live a life of failure.
In this chapter in Numbers, God takes a census of all the people in each tribe and tells them how to move, north, south, east, and west. In Numbers 2:2, God tells the Israelites to set up a tent around the tent of meeting each in the direction of north, south, east, and west, so they hold up banners according to their tribes and families. Why did they have to do that? “God is supposed to be the God of freedom, why can’t we live in freedom, why do we have to do this?” We’re curious, aren’t we? It is possible you never asked this “It’s embarrassing, why do I have to hold up the family banner? Why can’t I just live wherever I want?” It’s because if you leave humans to live however they want, it won’t work out.
God made it so that they face the tent of meeting north, south, east, and west. How did they live in Egypt? They lived according to the places with better education or property values or somewhere close to their workplaces, or in places with friends so they could save on gas. God is saying, “Forget all of that; instead, be centered on the tentative meeting and circle around it.” This doesn’t mean you need to move close to the church. It’s not fitting with the present day. It might have been true back in the Old Testament but it’s not true now. God is commanding us to be centered on worship, so the north, south, east, and west means to be centered on being with God; that’s the standard.
Then from Numbers 2:3, God starts talking about the East. This is where the camp of Judah will encamp. In the Bible, the East is the most important direction. God talks about how our sin is as far as the east is from the west. Even the wise men came from the East to see Jesus. The direction of the Tabernacle is also in the East direction. To head into the Tabernacle, you head east. If you went to the west, that would be the Ark of the Covenant.
Why do you think He told the camp of Judah to be in the most important direction, East? To us, it doesn’t really matter, but to them, at this time it was a very important topic, because it was through the tribe of Judah that Jesus Christ was born, so the fact that God placed the camp of Judah in the most important direction means that God had the most important interest in Judah.
In Numbers 2:5, “Next to that tribe will be the tribe of Issachar.” So, He is setting up camps on the East side, then next to them are the tribes of Issachar, then Zebulun, then on the south side, it’s the tribe of Reuben. Reuben was originally the firstborn, but Reuben actually slept with his mother’s maid and so, God took away the blessings of the firstborn from him. Even though Reuben was the firstborn son, he was no longer regarded as the firstborn son; as a result, he is in the southern region.
In Numbers 2:12, “ The next camp in the south would be the tribe of Simeon,” you realize that the Levites are missing from these verses. The Levites are the priestly tribe, but Simeon and Levi were both actually cursed. Israel’s daughter Dinah was raped, and when Israel didn’t have the power to say this or that, Simeon and Levi actually went in and killed all the people in the city that raped Dinah. This is what happened when Jacob was really weak in the covenant, and the reason Jacob was so silent, unable to say anything, was because he was afraid of retaliation. If Jacob was quiet because of his faith, these things wouldn’t have happened. So, the reason Simeon and Levi were upset that Dinah was raped was because they were from the same mother Leah, and so they took a sword and killed all the men in that city.
Honestly, later on, the tribe of Simeon almost disappears, because when Jacob passed away, he actually cursed the tribes of Simeon and Levi. Because they had so much vengeance and wrath in their personality, they were very good at using their swords, and that’s how they died. That’s the case for everyone who has a temper, and the moment the Levite tribe was blessed by God was when they used their swords to kill everyone who bowed down to the golden calf. At that time, God told the Levite tribe to kill everyone they saw; it didn’t matter if they were I’d they were friends or family or anyone, so they were enemies of idolatry.
Simeon and Levi were both good at using the sword. When they used their sword for their own benefit or rage, then they were cursed, but when they used it for the righteousness of God then it turned into a blessing. So, the sword itself isn’t what’s bad, but are you going to use it for the will of God, or will you use it for yourself based on your own emotions? Money isn’t bad; it’s a matter of whether you use it for yourself or for the Lord. Success isn’t a bad thing; it’s a matter of whether you’ll use it for the Lord or for yourself.
Romans 6 tells us to use every part of ourselves as instruments of righteousness. The important thing is that we all have the same things, but will you use those things as instruments for the Lord, or will you use them as instruments for sin, idols and yourself? The moment the curses turned into blessings for the Levite tribe was when they stood in the side of the LORD at the time when everyone was falling into idolatry, and that’s how the tribe of Levi became the priests. Simeon, on the other hand, becomes a smaller and smaller tribe until it gets eaten up by the Tribe of Judah, and that’s how it was fulfilled according to God’s Word, just as Jesus Christ’s death on the cross was a fulfillment of the Word from the Old Testament.
What will happen to your future as well? Your future can go in 1 of 2 ways the people who go according to God’s word or the people who do not. For those who follow God’s Word, their lives will work out according to God’s Word, but for people who do not hold onto God’s Word, their future is prepared like a nonbeliever’s life. Because the Levites held onto God’s Word, they were completely changed. Even if you’re in the midst of complete failure, if you hold onto God’s Word, that failure cannot block God’s Word. Honestly, holding onto God’s Word is a matter of life or death. If you look at people who fail, they were not moved by God’s Word, but they were very moved and inspired by the words of people, so that’s why they got scared. Because they’re so inspired by people, they get scared and they get caught and easily swindled, and they get so moved by dramas. They’re so wrapped up in physical stories that people create in their brains, thinking it’s real. I don’t know how sad that is. It’s the Word of God.
What will happen to you in the future? It will work out according to God’s Word. You can’t hold onto God’s Word just because you want to; honestly, you can only hold onto it if God’s Word comes upon you. In other words, God will work according to the Word He gives you. Failure in worship means that God’s Word isn’t going into you. That person will fail without a doubt, why? Because they’re going to make a decision that’s different. Because something else goes into their heart, they will make a different decision, it’s an idol.
You have to live for yourself, so you have to hold onto something; you have to hold onto success because you need success. Because we lost hold of the word of God, we end up living for ourselves like that, then without a doubt, the Spirit of Satan will work. The way he works is with lies. He deceives us with the illusion of success, telling us we can become like God. People who are conned or swindled don’t make that decision because they think they are going to fail, they make that decision because they think they are going to succeed.
In Numbers 2:14, the next tribe to go to the south is the tribe of Gad. Leah’s five children took charge of the east, the most important direction, and the south. Then on the west is Ephraim, Joseph’s second son. In reality, God changed Joseph to be the firstborn son because they were all saved through Joseph. But He takes Joseph out of this and makes his second son, Ephraim, into the firstborn son. So, if you look at the Israelite community, the tribes of Judah and Ephraim are the capitals. To the south is the tribe of Judah and the north tribe is Israel. The most important of the northern tribes is Ephraim, so the history of Israel works out in its importance according to God’s Word. After that was Reuben and Benjamin, these are Rachel’s three sons, and this is talking about the west.
What about the north side? The north side was taken by the maid servant’s sons. God divides the lands according to the tribes, all centered on the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant. In other words, it’s centered on worship, and the center of worship is the Word of Christ. From the Word of God is the power of the Holy Spirit, and that is the center core. That is how God created the community in the Old Testament, centered on the Tabernacle.
That’s how He centered the community even in the New Testament, “You will worship in spirit and in truth” which is the Word. When you receive the word of God then you’ll receive blessings. When the Word of God comes into you, problems become answers. When the Word of God comes into you, Christ is turned into opportunities. We cannot turn crisis into opportunities, until the word of God comes into us it will never change, but that’s our power, our status, and our authority. The work of the devil is to tell us to forget about that and instead, to live according to our own thoughts.
It’s important to listen to the Word of God a lot, because we’ve been imprinted with so many other things as well. But what’s even more important than listening to God’s Word a lot is to find out what’s moving you at the deepest center of yourself, because that’s what determines your future and your answers will follow according to that. What’s religion? Deep inside of you, you have an idol, and on the outside, you live your walk of faith. That’s religion. You follow everything in the Bible for your own benefit, for what you want.
All the Israelites followed the Word, they set up tribes according to the north, south, east, and west; they slaughtered lambs and cows, but why did they fail? Because even after they received salvation they didn’t change. They received salvation through God’s grace, but the idols were still moving deep inside them, and the things God hates the most are idols, so the reason our lives fail is that we do the things that God hates. There’s nothing else. It’s not because you’re not living a nice life, but you are doing something that God hates. Adam and Eve didn’t have bad personalities; they did things that God hates, and the work that the devil is doing now is still what God hates. So, God is telling you to go into the things that God desires through worship.
After he counted all the people, in Numbers 2:32, it says there were 603,550 people. They’re not separating people into groups to make political regions. It’s not an ordinance or a housing department. Why is it that only the men were counted in a population that numbered over 2 million? They only counted the number of men over the age of 20, setting up the land centered on the Tabernacle. That’s what’s important. What’s more important than where you live is, what you’re living centered on, and what’ you’re living for. It’s not that only the men over 20 years old were living; they were living with their mothers, daughters, and children but why does the Bible express it like this?
It means there’s a battle ahead of us. “I don’t like fighting,” then you have to be a slave because it means you don’t know who the enemy is. You can only have peace if you win the battle. If you lose the battle, you’re a slave. There are some people who say, “It’s neither this nor that,” but that’s not true; if you’re not this, then you’re that. The reason why God tells them to hold a banner, it means that there’s a battle remaining. In other words, there’s a battle or fight that God desires for us on planet earth in other words, there’s a place we must plant the banner of Christ.
There’s a battle of 31 kings and the dozens of tribes that are there, which must plant banner of the Lord after fighting the battle and that is the reason the Lord gives us the book of Numbers today. God is telling us to position ourselves facing the tabernacle and tent of meeting to prepare for the battle. That war is in God’s hands and so we must be centered on the Lord. That is our life on this earth. On this earth, our enemy, the devil is controlling the world and we need to plant the banner of Christ there. God will use us to fight that battle, guiding us and give us the power to plant the banner of the Lord. That’s why God is telling us to raise the workers and disciples who will fight this battle.
If you’re just living a life of eating, working, and living, that is a failed life. He is telling you not to live a life that repeats the life of slavery in Egypt. Now, you need to prepare what you need to live a life for the covenant. Why must you marry? You must marry for this purpose. “Don’t you think marriage becomes too intense, then?” No, whatever you’re thinking must be dry. Whatever you think is romantic now will be dry later. If you just go into the Word of God, romance will follow later. If your entire family is falling apart, what romance are you talking about? If the devil is continuously making you fight with each other, what romance are you talking about? God tells you not to live your professional life holding onto anything other than Jesus Christ, you’re going in there to plant the banner of Christ, but you’re dreaming something else. What do you think will happen to the other dream? It’s that dream that says you want to go back to Egypt. That’s why God is telling you to rise up as spiritual soldiers and workers.
Numbers 2:33 says, “The Levites, however, were not counted among the Israelites,” the Levites didn’t directly go and fight in the battles of Canaan because they had to take charge of the Tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting for worship. In Numbers 2:34, the Israelites did everything the LORD commanded Moses, that is the way they encounter under their standard and that is the way they set out each of their family, which means they set up their camps, and this is the journey they went on.
What does God want of us? How many of your family members are raised as spiritual soldiers? How many spiritual soldiers can you count in your family line? That’s what is being said. “Just marry whomever you want and just have a peaceful life,” those are the words of the devil, of slaves. It is not about that, but now, there is a family of people who hold the covenant and are standing as spiritual soldiers.
You must choose your occupation based on the covenant as well, centered on worship. That’s what He’s saying. In a more specific way, you guys are all scattered to the north, south, east, and west of the church, correct? Why are you scattered in those directions? It means you must have encampments set up to cast out the idols in that region and plant the banner of the Lord. Home is not a place where you come back after a long day and rest, but it must be your base where you fight the battle, and that’s why you must have the Mission Home. That’s what this means. It’s your family, but you must raise it as a Mission Home, setting it up as a camp to raise disciples, to the north, south, east, and west.
Then, you set up these camps where you can take over the entire region, family by family and region by region through regional churches. There’s a reason why God sent you into the region you live in. Everyone wants to be the head of their own regional church, and there’s fighting over how to divide the regions, but whoever is the regional leader is the one who can spiritually go conquer that region. If someone is a regional leader that is not aligned with God, then what would happen? They’ll just have a regional meeting that’s for eating and drinking and doing the things of idolatry. This is why we’re focused on regional churches.
If you want to do the biblical movement, we should have meetings in the regions where people are meeting and praying, in the past we might not be ready for it but maybe now. It’s not something you do just because you’re older; just because you’re older, you shouldn’t be a regional leader who leads people into idolatry, you’re constantly talking about something else. Your fellowship isn’t fellowship, it’s just corruption, and every single one of those people will fail. “Oh, we’re just playing with freedom,” you’re going to fail, because you don’t know what you must be doing right now. This isn’t saying, “Don’t eat,” but what are you eating for?
People are just pretending to worship, but it’s all idolatry, they’re eating and drinking and babbling, so they all failed together. Is playing the equivalent of failing? No, but the fact that you don’t know what you must live for right now is failure. That is why you just lead them naturally to meet according to their family and region. Some people say, “I don’t like that, I just want to be free; don’t tell me what to do.” Those people will die in the wilderness out of Egypt. God is telling us to do all this for our benefit, so that is why we follow God’s Word, and that is how we win.
What do you think it means to have a large vessel, and what does it mean to have a small vessel? There’s nothing else. It means, how close are you to the Word of God? That’s how you become the vessel of God but if you do not become the vessel of God then you become a vessel that is centered on yourself and only knows about yourself. You cannot receive people; you only fight with others, and that’s why people are always in conflict. However, if you meet together to do regional evangelism, to fight the spiritual battle then God has no choice but to work. We are reading the book of Numbers to set up that camp. Deuteronomy is making sure your imprint, root, and nature are sure, so that’s why he tells you In Deuteronomy, “deutero” means two, he is saying imprint the word of God yet again.
In the Pentateuch, written by Moses, we are talking about Numbers 2. I hope you will understand the meaning of the Word and apply it accurately. According to your job, family, and region, if you have the meeting for the will of God, then you will have the works of the word as evidence, just like the Early Church. Because of the pandemic, all our regional meetings have been destroyed, but because of the online age, the entire world has become our region. It is no longer north, south, east, and west, but it is 237, the entire world, centered on the Word and worship, centered on the direction of conquering Canaan to save the 237 nations. That is the work that God is doing, the closer we get to the end of the age. Even if they don’t come here, we’re connected to them online. May you enjoy and testify of this blessing.
Let us hold onto the Word of God we received today and really consider how close we are to the word of God and make a decision that takes you closer to God’s Word. Let us pray together.