Do you know what one of the most powerful forces in the world is? It is a force that physically cannot be stopped. No army, military, militia or fighting force can stop it. No laws, regulations or political interruption can alter it or deter it in the least. No man or woman on the planet can deny it’s presence or escape it’s effect. It continues on, unaware of it’s surroundings and environment, changing them all but being changed by none. Give up? This unstoppable force is the second hand of a clock.
It’s been said that time marches on and that is indeed a great truth. Regardless of what we say, think or do, that little second hand just keeps circling. Regardless of our leaders, wars, victories or disasters, that little hand keeps on spinning. No matter the fads, the technology or the societal trends, the seconds continue to log. And one I’m not really a fan of, no matter what we do or how much we exercise, these bodies continue to show signs of those many combined seconds that have ticked off.
But for God time is much different. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things for me to grasp about God. That God is outside of time. Beyond time. That He was in the beginning before the beginning. (Gen 1:1, John 1:1) That God already knows about the end of this world as He has seen it and has been there. And yet He will be there in that moment as He is now. We’re told in 1 Peter 3:8 that to the Lord “a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Yet another sign that to God, that ticking second hand moves in another realm of existence. But alas for us, that hand dictates our lives here on this Earth and as a result of that second hand moving ever forward, we see new generations cease and new ones begin. We see the rotation of life.
And that is exactly what we see today in Numbers 26, a new generation. Recall back in Numbers 13 that the people sent spies into the promised land and as a result of their lack of faith in God, they refused to enter. As judgement God sent them back into the desert so that these unfaithful hearts could die there, never being allowed to trod a single step on that Holy ground. Today we see the culmination of this judgment. It’s been 40 years and not to sound insensitive but “the herd has been culled.” The hard hearts that would not submit in obedience to the Lord have fallen in the desert. An aimless, hopeless walk in the opposite direction from the Lord and the land He promised them.
A census dominates most of our chapter today. God is a God of details and appreciates good accounting. I bet you count how much money you have in the bank, right? Why? Well because you greatly value it and have a purpose for it. It’s no different with God’s children. You see, God values us more than you’ll ever know. He made us in His own image and sent His Son here to die for us. He loves us and has a purpose for us and He wants to know how and where we are. I bet you there’s a census being taken in Heaven even today.
As we look at this census from chapter 26, we have a direct reference to compare it to. You see, God took a census at the beginning of Numbers in chapter 1 and we can easily compare the two. You can see that as a nation they lost 1,820 total people. (603,550 - 601,730) Recall that they only counted men of fighting age from 20 years old and up and they didn’t count women, elderly or children. If you carefully extrapolate, that means a nation of about 2-2.4 million people. Some tribes increased and others greatly decreased depending on their obedience to the Lord.
What you see in today’s census is a completely different nation that what you saw 40+ years ago. God has let them march around the desert aimlessly so that the second hand could do what it does. Rotate life. The nation now has fresh hearts. But the question is, are they fresh hearts that are tender for God or are they hard hearts that have been passed down from similar hard hearts?
Our generations are no different today. About 150,000 people die globally each day while 360,000 new lives emerge to take their place. You see the glory of life rotation in those numbers. But the most important stat concerning new generations cannot be listed or even researched. In this life rotation, what kind of hearts are being brought forth? In this life rotation are we a world that is growing closer to God or a world that is second by second moving away from God?
Those are both very deep philosophical questions that I’m sure the world would love to debate, but I think the answer is beyond clear. Our world today is clearly speeding in a direction opposite that of God and His statutes. We see a world of prideful, selfish hearts that are breeding the same. But God’s goal is the opposite. His goal is for us to have our hearts radically changed by His Son Jesus, and to then foster and disciple more of these same hearts. You see, there are a myriad of verses where God clearly lays out His plan for this pattern of generational renewal. His plan is to have all new generations told of His Son and after calling upon His Son for salvation, to have those renewed hearts serve Him as the previous redeemed hearts had done. Read these:
“He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.” Psalm 78:5-6
“Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord” Psalm 102:18
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Deut 6:6-7
The hearts of this generation have a duty to the hearts of the next generation. To raise up hearts and lives that know Jesus Christ, love Jesus Christ and serve Jesus Christ. The hearts of this generation must live lives that glorify Jesus and show the other lives on this planet the pure joy of what it is to live with tremendous purpose, passion and freedom. To live a life not with a limited, selfish vision of personal success and personal wealth, but to live a life fulfilling the holy vision that God created us to fulfill. When the hearts of this generation find satisfaction in obedience to God, then other hearts will see that value and follow. The goal? When God takes His next census, the numbers of believers in His Son increases. And as result of this incremental rise, the world becomes more the way God intended.
You see, the world doesn’t change because of one president or one leader. The world changes as individual lives are changed by Jesus Christ. The world is not changed by one life with power, it’s changed by God’s power in one life.
Be a life today that doesn’t try to change the entire world, be a life that changes just one other life. To do that? Share Jesus.
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