Num 9:8, Moses therefore said to them, "Wait, and I will listen to what the Lord will command concerning you." 
In this morning’s reading there is detailed a basic, yet never to be taken for granted provision of the Lord. It is the manner in which we are to deal with each and every decision or conflict that comes into our lives. The full measure of what is before us needs to be carefully considered in the complete scope of what it means to know God.
At the core of the statement of Moses is the truth of how much God has given of Himself to be in any type of relationship with this humanity, whom He created. Let us never, ever lose sight of the fact that He is The Only Living Lord God Almighty, Creator of the heavens and the earth and all therein. Nothing has come into being without His spoken word creating it. Our every essential aspect of being should just be dumbfounded and in awe of the truth that He hears our cries unto Him and that He always responds! This is no little or insignificant thing. It is the very heart of grace and mercy from God to such as ourselves.
I would again take the time to quote Dr. Ronald B. Allen, from the The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, concerning how much this should affect our heart’s consideration of Who God is and how much He has done for us. Quote, The grace of God is to be seen not only in the words of His response to Moses, but in that He responded at all. We need to grasp anew the concept of the audacity of faith: by what right, excepting only God’s great grace, dare even Moses go before Yahweh, the Creator of the universe, asking for a provision for exception from His demands? All God’s actions and words to His people are gracious, undeserved, and unmerited. That He speaks at all, even in demands, is a mark of His condescension; that He speaks favorably in response to the request of Moses is a marvel. Throughout we have the sense of the ongoing wonder of grace.
God’s gracious provision for those who were ritually unclean was an alternative opportunity to celebrate the Passover on a day one month later so that they would not be excluded totally from its observance. The text thus presents the reality of the distancing that uncleanness brings between a believer and his participation in the worship acts of the community; it also provides a merciful alternative from the Lord. Further, the answer of the Lord went even beyond the request by adding the alternative of a later celebration for those who might be away on a trip as well as for those who were ritually impure. End quote. 
	Oh the grace and the mercy and the love and the forbearance of God to listen to such as us as we seek to know the way in which to please and to honor Him in our every decision. That is what is at the very heart of this passage. We need to come before Him in awe and humbleness and with reverence in our petitions. And, we must come before Him to know what He desires at the every turn of our lives. We must never assume that we know how to do anything. 
	Something we must all take to heart and put into practice is that every decision, be it large or small, needs to be made with the seeking after God’s way and His will at the forefront. We are shown, by the example of Moses, in this scripture, that it is absolutely necessary to go to God and to ask Him for His guidance. 
	It would have been easy for Moses to just declare his own thought on the matter of the men who were unclean because they had dealt with the body of a dead person. Moses could have used his own ideas and his own calculated sense of what might be the best way to deal with the situation. But, rather than rely on his own, limited measure of knowledge, he went to the Lord and directly asked God what should be done. So should we at every step of our walk on this earth! 
	This was not unusual for Moses, as he was continually seeking the word of the Lord in how to lead God’s own people. Consider when we read about the escape from Egypt as the army of Pharaoh was coming closer and closer to the trapped Israelites at the Red Sea. The people were panicked, but Moses sought the Lord as to what to do at that time of urgent distress. 
In response to the Lord’s direction, Moses cautioned the people in Ex 14:13+14 to just be still and wait on the deliverance of the Lord. Ex 14:13+14, But Moses said to the people, "Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." 
	He urged the nation, as a whole, to just be quiet and watch what the Lord would do for the salvation of His Chosen people. Moses had called out to the Lord and the Lord had answered that call with the encouragement to just wait patiently for the Lord to make the way of escape, which happened to be through the Red Sea itself, on dry land by the miraculous work of God’s own mighty Hand.
	After our current passage dealing with the Passover feast for those who were not yet cleansed from their handling of the dead man, Moses also had to deal with other practical issues stemming from the received ordinances of the Lord for the people as a whole. This showed the reality that God was able to answer the petitions and the requests with a heart that would provide a means for those who wanted to obey, and yet were faced with seemingly impossible situations that would otherwise go against the dictates of the Lord. God’s grace and mercy was so evident in each of these details of how to both honor the Lord and to deal with the everyday functioning on this earth. The key was always the truth that those who sought any type of redress from the Lord were doing so because they wanted to honor Him above all else.
Another such opportunity to seek the Lord’s answer to an impossible situation is recounted in Num 27:1-5. In this passage, we see how Moses went to the Lord on the behalf of the daughters of Zelophehad who died sonless in the wilderness. Unless there was some type of overruling by the Lord, the set in place ordinance would completely blot out their father’s name. His property would be forfeit and his daughters would be left with nothing. They came to Moses to present their honorable and just case, which needed some resolution. Rather than just making a decision, Moses did as was necessary, then and now. He asked the Lord to direct and to make the decision as to this rightful claim. These sisters trusted that Moses would go to the Lord on their own and their father’s name sake, and that is exactly what he did.  
Num 27:1-5, Then the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph, came near; and these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah and Hoglah and Milcah and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the leaders and all the congregation, at the doorway of the tent of meeting, saying, "Our father died in the wilderness, yet he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but he died in his own sin, and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers." And Moses brought their case before the Lord. 
	Another instance of taking an earthly situation before the Lord, seeking His guidance and His counsel, and His will, as an example of what we need to learn to do every time in our trust in the Lord is recounted in 2 Chron 20:14-18. Here, Judah is under attack and King Jehoshaphat and Jerusalem are in earnest travail at the overwhelming numbers of the armies arrayed against them. There is panic in the city and the people. Again, in the midst of the chaos and the turmoil and the urgency of the situation, the Lord made provision, as He always does!
	2 Chron 20:14-18, Then in the midst of the assembly the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph; and he said, "Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: thus says the Lord to you, 'Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's. 'Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the valley in front of the wilderness of Jeruel. 'You need not fight in this battle; station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.' Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out to face them, for the Lord is with you." And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. 
	The result was that the combined enemies of Judah turned on each other and slew each other as the Lord ruled and overruled. The nation was saved, not by going into battle, but by waiting on the Lord and trusting in the manner of His salvation as they set aside their panic and just worshipped Him for the fact that He would make the escape from annihilation for them.
	The Psalmist encourages us to call upon the Lord and to seek Him and to ask His way in our every decision-making process in Ps 25:12-15. When we do so, God always hears and shows us the path that we are to tread. Ps 25:12-15, Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. His soul will abide in prosperity, And his descendants will inherit the land. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His covenant. My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will pluck my feet out of the net. 
	Later, in Ps 85:7-13, the Psalmist again highlights the truth of Who God is and how He does respond to those who seek Him. The way of those who belong to the Lord will be characterized in the fullness of the very nature and Being of God in evidence. Ps 85:7-13, Show us Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, And grant us Thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will say; For He will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones; But let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land. Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth; And righteousness looks down from heaven. Indeed, the Lord will give what is good; And our land will yield its produce. Righteousness will go before Him, And will make His footsteps into a way. 
    	In Proverbs, Chapter 3, verses 5-8, we have the passage that many of us know by heart. The issue, however, is do we know it in our heart as the reality of our walk on this earth? It is not enough to verbalize our thoughts and say what we know we should say. It has to be real and part of our lives as surely as breathing and the beating of our hearts. 
Prov 3:5-8, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, And refreshment to your bones. 
    	Our final passage of the morning returns us again to the example that Moses set for us in terms of trusting the Lord. It is found in Heb 3:5-15, if you would please open to it. We are given the truth that although Moses was our faithful witness of that which was to come, Jesus is our example and our perfect source of obedient trust in God for everything. 
	Heb 3:5-15, Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. "Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart; And they did not know My ways'; As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'" Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." 
The warning is very clear and should resonant in our hearts that we are to listen to the Lord today. Not at some vague point in the future after we have exhausted our every human effort. It is today that we are to listen and it is today that we are to heed His word in our hearts and beings. He is faithful and just, as shown so comprehensively throughout the scripture. He will guide us in our every decision if we will but seek Him with all our heart and wait for His answer. So be it!
Moses therefore said to them, "Wait, and I will listen to what the Lord will command concerning you." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is 2 Cor 3:18. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. Amen.