Numbers 28:2 Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and my bread for my sacrifices made by fire for a sweet savour unto me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season.
This past weekend I had the privilege of preaching at a church that was celebrating its 183rd anniversary. How incredible! There are precious few independent Baptist, Bible preaching churches that are that old. Now, who do you think would know more, a person in a church that has been around for 183 years or a person in a church that has only been around for five years? When you think about it, both have the same body of doctrine and one has had to pass that on a lot longer than the other. In some ways, it is easier to hold on to the truth that the church began with when you have only been around for five years.
Which person do you think would have an easier time knowing their own heritage, a person that is a member of a church that has been around for over 100 years or a person who has been in a church only in existence for five? If you’ve been in a church that has only been around for five years, you don’t have to be taught the history because you remember it. So, with every day a good church exists its chances of continuing diminish. That is because there is more to be taught, more to learn, and more to pass along.
In Numbers 28, God is giving to Israel something He had already given to them. Verse 2 says, “Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and my bread for my sacrifices made by fire for a sweet savour unto me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season.” What follows is something we’ve already seen, something that Israel had already heard. It was the teaching of doctrine about special days, sacrifices, and so on.
Why was God giving this to these people all over again? The very simple answer is that these people who now were coming of age were people that had not been taught this before.
Numbers 26:65 says, “And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.” There was a census taken in the first chapter of Numbers, but 38 years later God is numbering the people again because all of that generation had passed on except for Joshua and Caleb.
In Numbers 27 God tells Moses that he is not going to see the land that God had promised them. Moses was going to die. God let him see from afar the land that God would give to the children of Israel. Then, “Moses spake unto the LORD, saying, Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation.” That was a wise thought. In fact, God had already planned for that. God said, “Take thee Joshua…in whom is the spirit.” Joshua was a man who would be worthy of this honor. Joshua was going to lead the nation that God had led out of Egypt by the hand of Moses.
Every new generation needs to be taught. This new generation needed to be taught the religious calendar of God’s people Israel. The bottom line for us today is that most things worth saying and are worth repeating. People don’t remember and they don’t know. I am amazed at what my own kids do not know. They know a lot. They are smart kids, but I am amazed at how much they don’t know. They don’t know these things because I haven’t told them. It is easy for me to think, “Well, everyone knows this because my dad taught me, and my mom reminded me. I know it and I think everyone else does.” But unless someone passes it on and reminds the coming generation, they don’t even know.
Israel was reminded of the things that mattered in a couple of ways. One was routine. Numbers 28:6 says, “It is a continual burnt offering, which was ordained in mount Sinai.” God ordained these special days and sacrifices way back in Mount Sinai, but this generation was not there. They were reminded. They were reminded by a continual burnt offering, one that is repetitious, habitual, a part of every day, one that reminded them on a daily basis about what mattered.
The second way was special occasions. Numbers 28:2 says, “Observe to offer unto me in their due season.” These seasonal days reminded the children of Israel of things that were important. In subsequent verses it says, “This is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering.” In other words, there are special days or even seasonal occasions where we add to what is being taught day by day in small ways.
So, we need to repeat, we need to remind, we need to pass on the truth to our children and those in the coming generation. Everyone is as limited as the instruction they have been given and the things about which they have been reminded.
Friend, maybe you don’t like to repeat yourself, but God certainly does. He does because most things worth saying are worth repeating, daily, seasonally, and deliberately.