If everyone could turn to Numbers 31. This is, I think, the third week that we have been looking at this. I am going to read the first two verses of Numbers 31. Numbers 31:1-2:
And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
This situation is interesting because Moses is 120 years old in this year, it is the 40th year of their wilderness sojourn, and they have had 42 encampments in the wilderness. They are sitting in Shittim, or Abelshittim as it is also called, and it is the 42nd time that they have set camp. Following this, after they smite the Midianites, they are going to go into the promised land. They are going to enter into Jordan.
We know from the book of Joshua that it was from Shittim that the spies went over to search out Jericho. Joshua 3:1 tells us that this is where they crossed to Jordan from Shittim, and it is in Shittim that the command is given to smite the Midianites, to vex them, “Because they vex you with their wiles.” It was the plan of Balaam as he revealed it to Balak, the king of Moab, to allure the people of Israel through Midianitish women. Through this, they began to worship Baalpeor and to eat the sacrifices of the dead, and so God sent a plague on Israel in which 24,000 people died; 23,000 in one day. In giving us that number 23, God wanted us to know that this was related to the great tribulation.
We also know that this is related to the great tribulation because of what we read further on in Numbers 31, in Numbers 31:25-27:
And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation: And divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon them…
That would be the soldiers.
…who went out to battle, and between all the congregation:
So God is the One saying, “Look, you have the spoils of the battle.”
By the way, they destroyed Midian. They killed five of their kings and slew Balaam with the sword. And how many Israelites were lost in the battle? Zero. They killed tens of thousands of Midianites, we can gather, because they had 32,000 female captives who were virgins, little girls and maybe teenagers and maybe a few ladies who were not married. They had 32,000 females who were part of that spoil, part of the prey, who were not married, so this means that there had to be tens of thousands of men, at least, who were fathers and brothers and husbands. They were all killed in close combat with swords and spears and things like that, with axes and those kids of weapons, and Israel did not lose a single person; not one. It tells us later in this chapter that when the captains came back and counted, they took a casualty report and realized that they had not lost one man, so then they gave an additional offering to Jehovah.
What kind of battle is it where God’s people go to fight and they do not lose a single person? Well, it is similar to what God said to Jehoshaphat when they went off to battle in the wilderness, “You will not need to fight in this, for the Lord will fight for you.” We know from 2 Chronicles 20 that this battle is related to May 21st in 2011, because all of the true believers go up into heaven and then God is going to fight with everyone left behind for five months until they are all dead men all over the face of the earth. October 21st will finish off whoever is left and destroy the world and unsaved man, and God will fight the battle.
We are just like Jehoshaphat and his army. At the end of it, we go to the watchtower in the wilderness. It is like there is a portal opened from heaven from which we see the great victory, and then we gather the spoil. This is what it says in 2 Chronicles, “They were three days in gathering the spoil.” But they did not lose a person. The difference with Midian is that, here, the Israelites actually fought. They did the fighting. But still, God made it so that they did not lose a single individual.
Do you know how hard that is to have a war on a major scale and not lose a hundred people, let alone a single individual, when you are in this kind of combat? We fight nations today, America, with all of its might, and, yes, we are able to destroy them with nuclear weapons and tanks and planes dropping bombs; but still, there are casualties, if only by friendly fire. Yet, here, in hand-to-hand, sometimes, and face-to-face combat, not a single person was lost.
So God is letting us know that there is something special about this battle. He also lets us know that it is very special because of the prey. He is the One who says, “Take the sum of the prey. Count it up: add the people, add the asses, add the beeves, add the sheep. Put it all together and that is your total.” He does this a little further on, and I will not get into that, but it was 840,000—840,000 people and animals combined—the number 84 and the number 10. Multiples of 10 do not change the meaning of it. It is God’s completeness, typified by the number 10, and 84 is related to the great tribulation.
How is May 21st in 2011 related to 84? It is the 8400th day of the great tribulation. A full 23-year tribulation is 8400 days, and that is the 8400th day. You do not get the number 84 until you get to the very last day of the great tribulation.
So here, there were 840,000, and then God said, “Divide it in two; cut it in half.” Then we have 420,000 and 420,000, which is the number 42 and 10, multiples of 10. It is the number 42 again. There were 42 encampments, which relates to the great tribulation. The holy city is tread underfoot for 42 months, according to Revelation. Divide it in half and we have 42 and 42. We have 420,000 evenly split between, it said, those who went to war and all the congregation.
Then in verse 28, Numbers 31:28:
And levy a tribute unto JEHOVAH of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred…
This is for all of the prey. One out of 500 is what percentage? It is 1/20th of 1%, and that is out of the 420,000. That number would be 840. 840 is 1/20th of 1% out of the 420,000 portion. Then the Lord says to take the other half, the other 420,000, for the congregation. In that, we are to take 1 out of 50. 1 out of 50 is 2%. 2% out of 420,000 is 8400.
So we have the one main number of 840,000 divided in half. From these two halves, we have 840 and 8400. We have 84, 84, and 84, with multiples of 10 in each of the numbers: 840,000, 8400, 840—God’s complete plan that this battle is going to take place. At the end of 8400 days, God’s people will be victorious without losing one person and there will be a great victory in heaven. We do not see that here, but that is what God is saying. There is going to be a great, glorious victory.
Remember what God said to Moses in Numbers 31:2:
Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
You see, the gathering is on May 21st in 2011.
I am just going to mention this because I was thinking about it. I am hoping that maybe someone will have more insight than I did. If you take 1/20th of 1% out of 7 billion people in the world, you come up with 14 million. If you take 2% out of 7 billion people in the world, you come up with 140 million. If you add them together, it is 154 million. I thought about this and I thought, “Wow! That is pretty close to 153 million, which we know has to do with that five months, and the number 153 is related to heaven.” I was thinking, “What if God is showing us that He is taking a percentage out of the population of the world, which will be very near 7 billion by the time that we get to the end?”
But I do not think that this is going to work for a couple of reasons. One is that it is not 153 million; it is 154, and God is very exact. The second reason is that, actually, you have to divide the population of the world into 3.5 billion and 3.5 billion, because that is the formula that God gave when He said, “Two percent out of one half, and 1/20th of a percentage out of the other half.” When you do this, you get 70 million, which is 2%, and 7 million, which is the 20th of a percentage, for a total of 77 million.
But I think that there is more here to this and that is why I am mentioning it. I am hoping that someone might think about this and get out their calculator and maybe find something. I cannot say, but I do think that there is more here. Maybe God is giving us more information.
Well, I just want to mention a couple of other things related to numbers, which is if you add up 8400 + 840, which is the Lord’s tribute plus those who were for the Levites out of the congregation, it is 9240, and that number breaks down into 2 x 2 x 3 x 7 x 10 x 11. This leaves, out of 840,000 minus 9240, 830,760, which is 2 x 2 x 3 x 7 x 10 x 23 x 43, and 23 and 43 are numbers of judgment. Again, with the way that God is using numbers in this chapter, I think that they are all very significant numbers.
By the way, is it Biblical to break down a number? Yes. Doesn’t God do this in Revelation 7 where He speaks of 12,000 from 12 tribes—12, 12, 12, 12? Yes, He breaks it down. Look at how He broke down Moses’ life: 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian, 40 years leading Israel in the wilderness. You see, God does use numbers and certain portions of numbers to teach spiritual truth.
By the way, if you are wondering how to break down a number, you take one date and then you travel to another date. From this, you have the number of years, and then that number is what you break down.
Let me give you an example. Moses died in the year 1407 B.C., right after God had said, “Vex Median, and then you will be gathered unto your people.” Now, Moses died in full strength. His eye was not dim. He was not someone like me who is really starting to wear out. He was not someone like me; he was someone in full strength at the age of 120. In other words, he was not sick and he could have lived on. This is what God is saying, but God took him. Later on, we will look at why He took him. But God took him in full strength, and then God buried him, personally, and no man knows where God buried Moses. Then God resurrected him after burying him. (We know this because he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Michael, who is Christ, had a discussion with Satan about the body of Moses.) And this all happened in the year 1407 B.C. when Moses was 120.
Now, if we go to another place in the Bible, if we go back to Genesis 6, in Genesis 6:3, we find, right before the flood:
And JEHOVAH said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
This has to be a reference to the time leading up to the flood, because God has not set man’s days at 120. According to Psalm 90, which Moses wrote, man’s days will be seventy or, by reason of strength, 80 years. This is the general limit. Some people die before or after those dates, but this is where God has set the bar for mankind. He was not saying that people would live to 120, but He was saying, “You have 120 years until the flood.” From that point, Noah would have been busy constructing the ark during those many years because he would have needed a lot of time for many different reasons.
We also know when this was, because the flood came in the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the year 4990 B.C., so 120 years earlier was the year 5110 B.C. This is when that 120-year period began. It would conclude in 4990 B.C. In 4990 B.C., God would come to Noah and say, “Yet seven days.” One week later, in the 120th year, the flood would come and the world would be destroyed. But it was after 120 years that God brought judgment, and Moses just happened to be 120.
In the book of Numbers and in Deuteronomy, we read that this is when God takes him, only because it was God’s purpose to take him. He could have lived on, but God made sure that after he was 120, he was taken.
Now, if you go from 5110 B.C. to 1407 B.C., you get 3703 years. And what you do, if you want to break down a number, is you get out a calculator, unless you are good and you can do it in your mind. If it is an even number, it is easy because the first number is normally a two, unless you see a big number that is a multiple of 10. But normally, the first number is 2, which would divide it in half, and then you go from there. After awhile, you will not be able to divide it by two, so then you go to another number. You are only going to use key Biblical numbers, so in 3703, you would try the number 3 first, because it is an odd number. No. Then go to the number 7. Yes, the number 7 is within the number 3703. Then you go to the next number, not 9 because that is just 3 x 3 and that would not come up if 3 did not. So go to 11, and, no, it is not there. How about 13? No. How about 17? No. How about 19? No. How about 23? Bingo! 7 x 23 x 23 = 3703 years from the beginning point of 5110 B.C. when God said, “You have 120 years,” to 1407 B.C. when Moses was 120 and God took him.
7 x 23 x 23, why? Because 23,000 people died in that plague, because there were 840,000 spoil, because the number 84 keeps flashing. It has everything to do with the end of the world after 7000 years from the flood, or God’s perfection and the great tribulation. So that is another way that we can tie this in.
Well, I would like to look at Moses. I would like to kind of stop and take a look at Moses, the man of God. You know, the Bible has a great deal of information to tell us about Moses. He was a faithful man; he was the meekest of men. The Bible says that he was “faithful in all his house.” We just read very good things about him. The only thing that might have been a blot on his record that we find in the Bible is when he smote the rock twice. God said that he could not enter into the promised land because he smote the rock, and God would not even allow discussion, “Talk to me?” There was no more of the matter, “You are not going into the promised land; you are going to die here,” and he did die in Moab and then God buried him.
Moses is very complicated, just like the Bible is complicated, because God uses different pictures of him. For instance, if we go to Hebrews 11:23, it says:
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
Don’t you wish that you had the faith of Moses as a three-month old? This is a good verse for us to look at because all throughout Hebrews 11, it says, “By faith, Abraham; by faith, Enoch,” by faith, this man and that man, “by faith, Moses.”
A little three-month old baby, it says, “when he was born, was hid three months of his parents.” Well, what did he have to do with that? How could it involve his faith at all? Yes, God could save a baby, and he did. He saved John the Baptist in the womb and He could save a three-month old. That is true, but a three-month old cannot exhibit faith nor can he understand language. A three-month old, really, could not communicate to his parents, “Look, hide me from Pharaoh’s men!” That is impossible, but this helps us to see that, actually, all the references to faith in Hebrews 11 are to the Lord Jesus. He is the faith that saves and only His faith. It is His work of salvation. He is the One who worked in the lives of His people all throughout history, and this is how we understand it.
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents…
It could also be a reference to his parents. But, really, that is not the point of what it is saying. His parents were like many parents. They just would have desired to protect their child. They would not want their little boy to be killed and thrown into a river, and so, naturally, they wanted to save the baby.
Then it goes on:
…was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
I always wondered about this. How can you see that a baby is a “proper child”? In Exodus, it says that he was a “goodly child.” So he was a goodly and a proper child. Actually, in Acts 7, it gives us another word, speaking of the baby Moses. I will start in verse 18, Acts 7:18-20:
Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live. In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months:
Here he is called “exceeding fair.” He was a proper child, a goodly child, and exceeding fair. Remember, this is not his mother writing these things. We know how mothers and even fathers look at their children, “Oh, so beautiful, so lovely.” No, this is the Word of God, and it is saying that Moses was “exceeding fair.”
When we look at the Greek, the word “fair” is the same Greek word as “proper” in Hebrews, and I think these are the only couple of places in which it is used. But here, it says “exceeding fair” because when you go into the Greek text, it actually says, “He was fair to God.” The word “God” is in the verse in Acts 7:20. It is theo in the dative case, which means “towards.” He was “fair to God.” This is why it says that he was “exceeding fair.” But they should have used the word “God” there. This is very similar to Jonah. Remember when we were going through Jonah, it said in Jonah 3:3:
So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of JEHOVAH. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
In the Hebrew, it literally reads:
…Nineveh was a great city to God…
It is a very similar construction to the Greek, except it is Hebrew.
Why was Nineveh a great city to God? (And that is the word ‘elohiym. You can look this up in the Interlinear. It does not show it in the English.) Well, because God saved them. They also were a picture of God’s elect whom God is going to save in this world. Every one of God’s elect is very important to Him. This is why, regarding Moses, that he was a proper child, a goodly child, and exceeding fair; that is, beautiful to God. He was fair to God because God had predestinated Moses to salvation. He was definitely one of God’s elect and God was going to use him in a very powerful way to bring His Word to Israel and to us today.
How many times is Moses mentioned in the Bible? Hundreds: the Law of Moses. There are many references to the man Moses, so I thought that we would look at three ways that Moses is fair to God, exceedingly fair to Him. This will help us to understand Moses better. At the same time, once we understand him better, we will understand why it was important that after he vexed the Midianites, he be gathered to his people.
First, Moses is used as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we go to 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 10 is a great chapter for us to point someone to in order to show them how the Bible was written. It really is a very good chapter that very plainly makes Gospel statements and shows us how God wrote the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, it says:
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
This is referring to going through the Red Sea when Moses, under God’s direction each step of the way, led the people of Israel through the Red Sea. The waters parted and they walked through as on dry ground. Then they got to the other side and the Egyptians who were following them were drowned.
This is a picture of salvation, as God saves His people. Moses went through the sea himself, personally, and so did the Lord Jesus. Christ went through the fires of the wrath of God to pay the price for His people’s sins. In Christ, each one of us was found who are His elect, and we also traveled with Him through the wrath of God. This is what the journey through the Red Sea typifies, and this is why Jesus said to the disciples when they wanted a position of power in His Kingdom, “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” “Yes, Lord.” Then Jesus confirmed it, “Yes, you will be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.” That is, “I did bear your sins; in that sense, you were with Me.”
True Bible baptism, what the Bible teaches about baptism, is the washing away of sin, purged by the wrath of God. As God pours out His wrath on Christ, that cleanses away the sins of all those whom Jesus came to save. We are baptized, in that sense, with Him. This is why it is speaking of Moses. It does not tell us that here, but this is clearly what God had in mind about the fathers who are typifying the true believers when they went through the Red Sea:
…And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
So they were cleansed, in a figure, in a picture, of their sins, as they crossed the Red Sea.
Now, there are other verses and other passages that show that Moses, at times, is a picture of Christ Himself. But a second way that God uses Moses in the Bible, and this is probably the biggest way, is that he is a picture of the Law. He is a picture or a type of the Law of God.
How many times does God refer to “the Law of Moses” in the New Testament? Repeatedly, again and again, we read of “the Law of Moses,” and so he is used to represent the Law of God, which is actually the whole Bible. He is a type and a figure of the Law.
This is why, when we go back to Numbers 20 and we read about the children of Israel in the wilderness murmuring again, really, it is not a pretty picture. It is not a pretty picture when you read the book of Numbers and you read what God did in the great deliverance from Egypt where He showed His mighty signs and miracles. They crossed the Red Sea and then they went into the wilderness to wander forty years, because they had already murmured when the spies came back with their evil report about the promised land. So God judged them and said that they must wander one year for each day that they had searched out the land. During that time, there were many tests and trials and afflictions. Under each one, practically, that we know about, they complained.
You know, it is not a light thing to murmur. It is not a light thing to complain about our situation, “Oh, but I do not do it unless I really feel bad; I mean, unless things are really going wrong.” Well, that is the point. That is the point!
When they were in the wilderness, when they were in the desert, that was when things went wrong. They were not complaining when they had the water. They were not complaining when things were going well. But in the wilderness, with the hot sun beating down upon them, with their families, with their possessions and all their livestock, God arranged circumstances so that this congregation of definitely over 1 million people did not have any water. They did not have any water at all, and this is what we read in Numbers 20. Let me just read in Numbers 20:2-6:
And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chided with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before JEHOVAH! And why have ye brought up the congregation of JEHOVAH into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink. And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of JEHOVAH appeared unto them.
You see, God is really making it tough. He is really making it tough. Actually, in Exodus 17, Moses said, “They be almost ready to stone me.” They had forgotten all the good things from the mighty hand of God. They had forgotten all the blessings and all the mercies that had come before because at this present moment, at this time, there was a hot sun. They were thirsty and they could not see any earthly way out.
So in that test, they failed and their tongues began to wag, which is very easy for us to do, is it not? When we get that feeling, “Oh, poor me! Poor me! The poor situation that I am in, this awful situation that I am in! Where is the water, God? It is so terrible!” And, yes, it was a severe test, but God does not give any allowance for murmuring and complaining.
What should have been the right reaction? “You know, the Lord has provided for us up until now. He delivered us out of Egypt. He brought us thus far. Certainly, He is going to carry us the rest of the way. Certainly! Let us not speak badly or evilly of Moses and Aaron. Let us trust the Lord. Let us pray. Let us cast our cares upon Him and let us wait on Him. If we perish, we perish,” (like Job). That would be the correct response.
It is not easy. It is definitely not easy. But, you see, there really is not any leeway to murmur. It is the deceitfulness of sin when we think, “Oh, I am not a murmurer. I only murmur when it gets bad. I only complain when things are really bad.” Well, that is the test of murmuring. That is the test of murmuring. That is when we need God’s grace and we need Him to help us, so that we can turn it around and start thanking Him for what He has given us.
Well, let me read on here in Numbers 20:7-11:
And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod from before JEHOVAH, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.
So there was a solution, a miraculous one that only God could provide. There was a solution to the problem and it was found in the Lord and in God.
Now, that was the historical situation; that was what happened. Those are the facts, but what is the Bible teaching?
Well, the Bible is teaching that the rock was Christ and the rod was the Word of God. Moses represents the Law. When they smote the rock, the water gushed out, and that was the Gospel. That is really what the Bible is teaching, and people hear this, “This represents that; that represents the other thing,” and they do not get it. They do not understand that this is how God wrote the Bible.
Go back to 1 Corinthians 10, which is that chapter where God finally…every now and then, He just lifts the veil a little bit and He shows, “This is really how you understand the Bible.” In 1 Corinthians 10:3, after being baptized unto Moses, it says:
And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
Which would be a reference to the manna. 1 Corinthians 10:4:
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
This is as clear as day. God just solved the whole picture in Numbers 20 to where there cannot be any mistaking it. God says that the rock is Christ. So we go back to Numbers 20 and we say, spiritually, that the rock represents Christ. This is what it says. So if the rock represents Christ, who does Moses represent? He did not tell us that. What about the rod? What about the water? If the rock represents Christ, don’t I have allowance to say that these other things represent spiritual teachings and ideas?
Yes, of course. This is what God wants us to learn. This is why Christ spoke in parables. This is why without a parable, He did not speak unto us. This is what He is constantly trying to get across to us, “Look for the spiritual Gospel meaning.” When we do, we see, “Yes, Moses is a figure of the Law of God, and he smites the rock twice,” and we are learning why now (we never really knew). He smites the rock twice because Jesus suffered twice. He suffered and died before the foundation of the world, the Lamb who was slain, according to Revelation 13:8. He made payment in full for all the sins of His people. Never again would He have to make payment. Then He entered into the world, not bearing sin because it had already been paid for, but to make it manifest and to reveal what He had already done. Then He went to the cross to show us, in that tableau, what He had accomplished from before the foundation of the world, when God was making Him suffer a second time but not bearing sins.
You know, I was looking at something recently. If we go to Hebrews 9, where it speaks of the earthly tabernacle and how it was a pattern of things in the heavens, we read in Hebrews 9:6-7:
Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:
So people look at this and say, “Well, you see, it is a type and a figure; a high priest is a picture of Christ,” and they are right, “and he went in once into the holy place, not twice. He did not go in twice.” Some people are upset by what we are learning from the Bible, that the Lord Jesus died once before the foundation of the world, and that 2000 years ago in history when He came into the world, He was not really bearing sins. People are very offended by this and they point to the high priest, “He went in once; he went once into the holy place.”
Did he? Did he? Well, let us go back to Leviticus 16, which describes the Day of Atonement when the high priest would go into the holy place. It says in Leviticus 16:11-13:
And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house,
This is important because he went in the first time to make an atonement for himself and his house, and Hebrews 3 says, “whose house are we,” meaning the elect. So he is making atonement for himself and for the house of God.
…and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself: And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before JEHOVAH, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before JEHOVAH, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:
So he is inside the Holy of Holies. The bullock has been slain and he is making this offering for himself and for his house. Then we find in Leviticus 16:14-15:
And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people…
Where did he kill the goat? He killed the bullock. He went in with the blood of the bullock. He sprinkled it seven times. Did he bring a goat trailing behind into the Holy of Holies? No, he had to go back out. He went in once already. Then he had to go back out to get the goat, and that is what it says:
Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil…
So he went out, killed the goat, and then brought the blood back in.
…and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:
When the Bible says that the high priest went once into the holy place, it means once a year on a particular day, but he actually went in twice. He went in two times into the holy place. Once for himself and his house, which we can understand by Jesus dying as the Lamb before the foundation of the world when He died bearing the sins of His people, but then Christ came really for the congregation, for all those to whom He wanted to make manifest what He had done. So we see that even with the language of going once into the holy place, it was actually twice; it was two times.
I think I have been going on awhile and I have not gotten to the third way that God uses Moses in the Bible, which relates to Numbers 31 more than these other two, but I think that we will have to look at this another time. Why do we not stop here and close with a word of prayer.