Numbers 10:11-36 - Rise Up, O Lord!

Tabernacle at Mount Sinai

Finally the great day had arrived. The people of Israel had encamped at Mount Sinai for a year. There, Moses went up on the Mountain to receive the Word of God. There, the people made a golden calf and backslid. There they repented. There God made a covenant with them. There, the Tabernacle was made and the glory of the Presence of the Lord filled it. Only then were the people ready to move on.

Now it was time to move out toward the Promised Land. On the 20^th day of the 2^nd month, 1461 B.C., the signal to depart Sinai was blown. The cloud moved from over the Tabernacle. The priests blew the silver trumpets to call the camp of Israel to their march.

As the Ark of the Covenant sets out, Moses, full of joy and confidence of faith, shouts aloud words of prayer and praise, words that have marked every move forward in the Church as well: “Arise, O LORD!, Let your enemies be scattered! Let them that hate you flee before you.”

Moses recounted this day in Deuteronomy 1:19 in one of his final speeches to Israel: “when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which you saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites[1], as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.” From Kadesh the spies would go out to view the Land of Promise. There the curse of 40 years in the wilderness would result from their rebellion.

Key Truth: Moses wrote Numbers 10:11-36 to teach Israel to follow the Lord in obedience, in evangelism, in trust, and in worship.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what the Bible says about following the Lord.

Pray and Read:  Numbers 10:11-36

Sermon Points:  . . .

1. We are called to follow Him in obedience (Num. 10:11-28)

2. We are called to follow Him in evangelism (Num. 10:29-32)

3. We are called to follow Him in trust (Num. 10:33-34)

4. We are called to follow Him in worship (Num. 10:35-36)

A note on 1 Cor. 15:29 "Baptized for the dead"

Folio 150 recto of codex of the beginning of 1st Corinthians (Wikipedia)

The Apostle Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:29 concerning those “baptized for the dead” (οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν; τί καὶ βαπτίζονται ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν) has remained an enigmatic puzzle for scholars since the patristic era. Is the phrase a metaphor of some kind, or is Paul describing an esoteric custom of baptism by proxy in the Corinthian church? Marcionites and Mormons have had no trouble appropriating the verse for heretical purposes, but evangelical scholars have remained stumped over this verse dubbed one of the most difficult in the New Testament.[1]

In the last forty years, scholars have come to an exegetical impasse on the verse, frustrated by a lack of consensus. Fresh approaches have slowed to a trickle, and