17/04/2011 - The counting of the soldiers

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“Now the LORD spoke to Moses: […] “Take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male individually […] all who are able to go to war in Israel.” (Numbers 1:1–3)

There’s a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1); even for counting those who are able to go in war. Yet, even in a subject like this we must be guided by God. As His servants, we need to be prepared to fulfil His commands; in so doing we’ll be able to take any action. King David, for instance, was a man used by God; however, he commanded a census to be taken with the purpose of knowing how powerful he was. David paid a high price for that attitude because the Lord never told him to do that. (II Samuel 24)

Once we have the approval from the Heavens we can move forward and take the next step. Otherwise, if the Most High does not compel us to carry out a specific plan, then we won’t be doing His will and that’s dangerous. It’s good to remember that we have to walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). It doesn’t matter how much the strength we have can be noticed or calculated since we’ll surely overcome all battles having the Lord by our side – whether those who are for us are great or small in number.

The divine command given to Moses was for him to count only those who were able to go to war. In Israel, there were many men who, from a purely human standpoint, were ready for the battle; yet others were hampered by a few shortcomings such as health problems and rules established by God Himself. It shows that in all the things we do must wait for the Almighty’s guidance.  Actually, the war is not ours, but His.

An important fact to be pointed out here is that Moses himself would have to supervise and to do the counting along with his brother Aaron (Numbers 1:3c) – They weren’t expected to delegate that job to the others. There are very personal duties that only we can do. No one can replace us in our consecrations or in the decisions we make. Once we receive the maximum authority in our lives we mustn’t transfer to anybody the power to establish our attitudes.

There were rules that the Israelites were expected to pay heed to in order to go to war such as the following: men under twenty weren’t allowed to combat (Numbers 1:3a), and neither those who got married within the past year (Deuteronomy 24:5). A list of people that weren’t supposed to fight can be found in Deuteronomy 20: those who had built up a house (verse 5); those who had planted a vine (verse 6); those who were engaged (verse 7); those who were fearful and fainthearted (verse 8).

It was their families’ duty to count them. Today the Lord has numerous families in charge of His work today: preachers, workers, sponsors, composers of praises and songs, singers and others that perform a variety of tasks in God’s house. All of them must be numbered, supported by prayers and by any other thing they might need.

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares