Num 2:1+2, Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "The sons of Israel shall camp, each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers' households; they shall camp around the tent of meeting at a distance. 
    	As we have begun to deal with the Book of Numbers, we have become mindful of the manner in which the Holy Spirit caused the writer to bring forth worship and praise to God in detailing the lists of the tribes by number. This serves to show the majesty and the honor and the power of God in ways that we may never have before considered. The same is so true of this chapter of our reading. If we carefully read it, we will find the glory of the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth flooding our hearts and minds.
It is important to note that our morning’s passage begins with the statement, Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron… To this point, in the other Books of the Torah that we have read, it usually was stated along the lines of the Lord spoke to Moses. Those books detailed the governance of the people and the manner in which they were to behave themselves. That was generally seen as the social and the regulatory details necessary to function as a nation. We did read about the priestly duties and responsibilities, but again, those were in terms of how the sacrifices were to be offered and how the priests were to prepare themselves to enter into the Tabernacle of God’s Presence. 
But here, because it is the manifested placement of the presence of God into the midst of the people with all the spiritual truths and connotations, we have the attention drawn to both Moses, as the Prophet of God, and Aaron, as the High Priest of God. This should immediately cause us to know that what is before us transcends merely the numbers and the names of the tribal leaders. There is a spiritual association that must be understood woven into the richness of the fabric of this writing. 
The reality of the manifest majesty and grace of God evidenced in our reading of this section is the fact that He placed the Levites into the very center of the encampment and the middle of the marching order. This was so significant, as we pointed out last time, on a purely safety level, because it afforded a protection from the harm that could happen to any who might wander too close to the holy place of God and thus be struck down. If anyone came into the place of the holiness of God unprepared and without the proper covering of sacrificial blood and cleansing, that person, even a priest, would be immediately put to death. 
And truly, if we think on the fact of God’s presence in the midst of His people, this would be a temptation for those who would want to have a greater sense of Who Yahweh truly was. It would not affect those who had no care for God or the things of God. Neither would it be a barrier for those who would be so afraid of God and therefore would make certain that they stayed as far away from the center of the camp as possible. No, this was truly a blessing of protection for those who would want to know more of the reality of the Lord God Almighty. These would seek to know the One Who had freed them from their slavery in Egypt and miraculously delivered them by parting the Red Sea and then making the miraculous provision of manna from heaven and quail and providing the water from the rocks as they were journeying to the Promised Land. Those who wanted to know more about God, who wanted to learn of Him in greater measure, who yearned for a deeper understanding of all those truths about Him, those were the ones who needed to be protected and buffered from being annihilated through their curiosity. 
The Lord was there for those who sought Him and He made every provision for that seeking after Him by setting up that buffer of the Levites who could both protect and at the same time instruct and teach and carry to the Lord the requests of those who were earnestly seeking to know Yahweh in deeper detail. God’s grace and mercy was evidenced in the setting of the Levites as that protective shield around His place of presence and as those who could teach and admonish and share the truth of Who He was and What He had done and was doing in the midst of all the people.
This use of the Levites as a protection for the people was spelled out, as we read last time, in Num 1:50-53, if you would turn to it once more and read along. Num 1:50-53, But you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings and over all that belongs to it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it; they shall also camp around the tabernacle. So when the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle encamps, the Levites shall set it up. But the layman who comes near shall be put to death. And the sons of Israel shall camp, each man by his own camp, and each man by his own standard, according to their armies. "But the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the testimony, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the sons of Israel. So the Levites shall keep charge of the tabernacle of the testimony." 
    	The next element of God’s resplendent glory evidenced in this chapter is the fact that God was in the midst of His people. This reading shows the progression that God ordained for His manifest presence being located in the center of His nation. Consider the way in which God prepared His people to receive Him. It began with a person, Abraham. Then it was a familial relationship through Isaac and Jacob. Then, when that family had grown into a large group of people in Egypt, God sent a prophet, Moses to declare His call upon them. As the people were being transformed from a massive and disorganized assembly of slaves into a nation, God met them at Mount Sinai and His voice thundered forth to the point that the people cried out for Him to stop speaking directly to them. 
God then made His presence before them outside the camp in the Tent of Meeting where He would deal with Moses as His representative to the nation. Then, in these passages, Yahweh makes Himself to inhabit the center of their camp and their marches forth to the Promised Land. Once they are in the land, He would dwell in the temple that would be prepared for Him in the capital of that nation. All of this is in preparation for Him to come into their very beings through His Messiah, with His Holy Spirit indwelling His people forever and forever. It is a progressive groundwork of His chosen people for the full measure of His glorious presence in the living relationship that is now opened in Jesus Christ.
	The prophets of old were shown this glorious truth as we find in passages such as Isa 12:6. Isa 12:6, Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. 
	Also consider the reality opened by God through the Prophet Ezekiel, as in Ezek 43:7-9, with the revelation of what God had always been working to accomplish within the hearts of His people. Ezek 43:7-9, And He said to me, "Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever. And the house of Israel will not again defile My holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their harlotry and by the corpses of their kings when they die, by setting their threshold by My threshold, and their door post beside My door post, with only the wall between Me and them. And they have defiled My holy name by their abominations which they have committed. So I have consumed them in My anger. "Now let them put away their harlotry and the corpses of their kings far from Me; and I will dwell among them forever. 
Despite the idolatry and the abominations of His people, God was working to make His presence the truth and the glory of their lives. He was showing them that He would forgive their sins and would establish Himself with them in a way that would bring honor to His name and health and well-being to His people. 
The Prophet Jeremiah proclaimed this in Jer 24:6+7. Jer 24:6+7, 'For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not overthrow them, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. 'And I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. 
      	In Jer 31:33-36, the prophet also highlighted the next truth of God’s glory that we want to see in this morning’s reading. Jer 31:33-36, "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day, And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The Lord of hosts is His name: "If this fixed order departs From before Me," declares the Lord, "Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease From being a nation before Me forever." 
  	God’s glory is in evidence in the establishment of His order in His creation and in His people. As Jeremiah pointed out, there is a fixed order to the way that God has made His creation to function. It cannot be a place of chaos and disarray, and befuddlement. …"If this fixed order departs From before Me," declares the Lord, "Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease From being a nation before Me forever." 
	The Apostle Paul highlighted this to the Corinthian Church in 1 Cor 14:33. 1 Cor 14:33, for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. And he reinforced it as the course of the manner in which the church was to conduct itself in verse 40. 1 Cor 14:40, But let all things be done properly and in an orderly manner. 
Order is a divine attribute of God’s glorious working, and it was set even into the manner in which the tribes were to array themselves in the camp and in the march. There were three tribes to the East, three tribes to the south, three tribes to the west and three tribes to the north with the Levites and the Tent of Presence in the very center. It was a physical manifestation of how a mass of people, formerly slaves and rabble were transformed into an orderly arrangement of a nation on the move. They camped in order, they marched in order, and they were to enter the Promised Land and subdue it in an orderly and efficient manner as representing the One Who created order out of chaos and unity out of confusion and panic and disjointedness. 
    	The manner in which the people were arranged created a united and organized body of people to go forward under the banner of the Lord. It was in this formation that they were seen as such a threat and an unstoppable force by the ragged and disorganized peoples whom they overthrew by the power of God’s grace and mercy and design.
	Again, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, Chapter 2, verses 18+19 detailed the manner in which God designed His people to grow into the unity and order as a body of believers. Col 2:18+19, Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. 
	It is another example of the order that God has designed from the very beginning, detailing how the body grows and develops in the unity that brings forth life and glory to God. Everywhere we look, we see how God has designed and organized and planned and purposed all things to show forth His beauty and His majesty and His honor and His praise. This was the case even in the manner in which the Children of Israel arrayed themselves according to His precise instructions and guidelines. 
	John, the writer of the Revelation of Jesus Christ was shown this precise pattern of order as he described the holy city coming down out of heaven in Rev 21:10-13. Rev 21:10-13, And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. 
	Again, the city was presented with the same pattern of the arrangement of the tribes of Israel with the center of the city being the place of God’s dwelling. All is set up with the glory of God as the central focal point, His presence in the midst of His people, is the brilliance and the majesty and the core beauty of all. So be it!
	Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "The sons of Israel shall camp, each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers' households; they shall camp around the tent of meeting at a distance. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Heb 12:1+2. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Amen.