Daily Devotion | Numbers 29:1–11 | 2026 June 15

Greetings, dear brothers and sisters, peace to you. Thanks be to God’s grace that we have come to a new day to study the daily devotion. The passage we are studying today is Numbers 29:1-11. Let us pray. O God, we thank You, we thank You that You are willing to treat us with such kindness and mercy, gathering these appointed feasts together and telling us how we should act. Please be with us and guard our hearts, so that we may always remember the fixed meanings of these feasts, and thus joyfully spend each day You have given us within You, to glorify and testify to Your name. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Now let us look at the two feasts in Numbers 29:1-11: the first day of the seventh month, and the tenth day of the seventh month. Regarding these two feasts — I don’t know if I mentioned to you before — among the feasts of the Israelites, there are two calendars, two new years. One new year is the first month in Israel’s religious law. For example, the 14th day of the first month is Passover (that’s 28:16). That follows their religious calendar. Then there is another new year according to their other calendar, somewhat like a secular calendar for the new year. So they have two new years: the first day of the first month, and the first day of the seventh month. This is the Israelite calendar; they have two systems. For the Chinese, the first day of the first month is the greatest day, right? You know that for the Chinese, the first day of the first month is the biggest day, because of ancestor worship and so on. But in Israel’s law, the first day of the first month is not a great day; it is merely a new moon, just a day for offering sacrifices. Their great day is the 14th day of the first month, Passover. That Passover is the great day in the religious law. Within the secular law, the greatest day is the first day of the seventh month. So, in terms of our Gregorian calendar: the first month of the Israelite calendar is roughly between February and March. It is somewhat like our Spring Festival, but a bit later. Our Spring Festival sometimes falls in January, sometimes early February; theirs generally falls in mid-February. That is their Spring Festival, the first month of their religious calendar. Then, extending that to the seventh month, that is roughly around September to October in our Gregorian calendar. These are roughly the beginnings of two seasons: one is spring, the other autumn. These are two major seasons. In spring they celebrate Passover; in autumn, for them, it is a solemn feast. Because in Israel’s seventh month, which is their new year, there are the first day of the seventh month, the tenth day, the fifteenth day of the seventh month — the tenth and then the fifteenth. The entire month is essentially an important period. From an agricultural perspective, it is a harvest time. October, the harvest is mostly finished, so it is a time of celebration. But note: for Israel, their celebration is primarily centered on the law and on atonement. This is something we must especially mention. As we go through these seasons, you will notice that their characteristic is always the law, the observance of God’s statutes and judgments, and remembering their atonement. That is why each feast has such a large number of sacrifices. Sacrifices show that their sins need to be dealt with. That is the nature of these days.

Now let us look specifically at their new year, the first day of the seventh month. The first day of the seventh month is a new moon. Of course, you must offer the sacrifices prescribed for the beginning of other months, but because the seventh month is a holy month with many activities, they begin celebrating from the first day of the seventh month. They blow trumpets. What is the purpose of blowing trumpets? In Numbers 10:10, it says, “On your joyful days, at your appointed feasts, and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the LORD your God.” So here we see two meanings of blowing trumpets. First, earlier in chapter 10, blowing trumpets was for battle, right? For battle, assembly, attack — they blew trumpets. Another function is to blow trumpets on joyful days. When the trumpet sounds, it signifies remembering the covenant made with God. Pay special attention: it seems among all the feasts — you can look for yourselves, or perhaps I haven’t looked carefully, but I think I only notice that only on this day they blow trumpets. So what does blowing trumpets signify? It signifies that God remembers His covenant with Israel. Blowing the trumpet signifies the arrival of a new season. Blowing the trumpet signifies that they, under God’s blessing, are entering a new era. So this annual blowing of trumpets at this time shows that God’s blessing and grace are coming upon this people.

Then in the New Testament, we read — for example, in the new heavens and new earth, when Jesus comes, it will be accompanied by the sound of the trumpet. This clearly alludes to the meaning of this new year. For instance, in 1 Thessalonians 4, the Apostle Paul mentions Jesus’ second coming, saying, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). So from this perspective, for each of us, the sound of the trumpet signifies the arrival of a new era. Every new year they blow trumpets — a new season, a new blessing, a new period begins. Every New Year carries this meaning, to show that the old has passed, the new has come, and the yearly cycle returns. But this yearly cycle points to the true, eternal new year, the coming of the new heavens and new earth. So for us, it is likewise.

On this day of blowing trumpets, the first day of the seventh month, the Israelites offered sacrifices to celebrate the arrival of the new year. And this new year clearly contains a foreshadowing of the new heavens and new earth, the coming of a new era. Next is the tenth day of the seventh month. This is the greatest day among the Israelites, though it is recorded briefly here. But in Leviticus 16, the regulations for the Day of Atonement are specifically mentioned — how to offer sacrifices. In chapters 8 and 9 of Leviticus? Actually, the Day of Atonement is the greatest day for Israel. On that day, the high priest offers sacrifices, cleanses himself, and blesses the people, showing that their sins are blotted out. So if you want to find the passages on the Day of Atonement, you can look at Leviticus 23 and Leviticus 16. Then you can see how important the Day of Atonement is for Israel. Because on this day, the high priest enters the Most Holy Place to blot out and cover all the people’s sins before God. When he changes his garments and comes out, that is the moment of Israel’s rejoicing. What does it show? That the sacrificial ritual is complete; God has accepted their offering; God has removed all their iniquities and transgressions from the past year. Then the high priest comes out and pronounces the high priestly blessing, which we give to the brothers and sisters every Lord’s Day: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” The reason this high priestly blessing is effective is because he had previously gone into the Most Holy Place, and God did not strike him dead. What does that show? That his sacrifice has been accepted. So this is a day of rejoicing for Israel. The Day of Atonement is a great day. So for Israel, from the first day of the seventh month to the tenth day, they needed to earnestly confess and repent. Of course, this refers to the Jews of that time — they had to carefully reflect on what sins and transgressions they had committed during the year, go and offer the required sacrifices, and wait for the Day of Atonement, when the high priest would come out and give them the blessing prayer, signifying that in the coming year they could continue to receive God’s blessing and guidance.

In the seventh month, which is around October in our Gregorian calendar, they would pray for the two rains. The land of Israel — I have mentioned before — how do you view the land of Canaan? Is it a land flowing with milk and honey, or a desolate land? It depends on whether it rains. If the land of Israel receives the former and latter rains — the latter rain refers to the rain in October; the former rain is the rain in April. If these two rains fall, the harvest of the land is secure. The region of Israel has a Mediterranean climate. In winter there is rain, which waters the soil and allows crops to grow. If they do not carefully obey God’s word, if they violate God’s law and worship idols, the result is what we continually see in Israel’s history. As in the curse of the law: “The heavens over you shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron” — that is, no rain. For Israel, the absence of rain is a deadly matter. Because in regions that have great rivers, like Egypt, if there is no rain, they can divert water for irrigation. But you know that in Judea, that is impossible. Judea is mountainous, elevated, and there are no great rivers around it — only the Jordan River, but the Jordan’s water is very small and insufficient. Below it is the Dead Sea. So without great rivers surrounding them, if they wanted to seek God’s blessing, it had to come through the Day of Atonement, seeing God’s acceptance of them, and He would send the former and latter rains. So what do we see here? That Israel’s faith is centered on the Day of Atonement, on atonement. That is what we read about these two seasons.

Now, we need to talk about some application for us. Brothers and sisters, I think the Day of Atonement, such a day at the core of Israel, is a great reminder for us. What does this mean? It means many brothers and sisters come to church bringing their own problems — work, life, health. We consider this normal because China does not have this foundation of faith. Coming to church with these problems, hoping God will solve them, with a somewhat idolatrous mindset — that is very normal. I think the initial reason many of us come to church may have had some of this mindset, and that is understandable because God is merciful, right? But after you have been gathering for a while, you may need to change your thinking. You need to understand what coming to church is actually for. It is that you need to deal with your sin. That is, for each of us, the greatest problem in our life is not our life, not that our bodies are not healthy enough, not that we lack wealth, not that we are unmarried or low in social status, not that I deliver food delivery, or guard a gate, or pick up trash. None of these are the real problem. The most important problem is: how will my sin be dealt with? Israel placed the Day of Atonement at the center of their life, the most important day of the yearly cycle. What does that remind us? Have we placed the matter of atonement at the center of our faith? In our faith, to be honest, if you think carefully, there are many strange things. For example, we take the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as our center, right? We take Christ as the center, the cross as the center. To an outsider, to an unbeliever, this is very hard to understand. Why is that? When you pray to gods or Buddha, you are seeking your own benefit, correct? You seek prosperous business, physical health, your children getting into Tsinghua or Peking University — you seek these things. How can this faith be centered on a crucified Christ? In last week’s sermon, I specifically mentioned that if you come to church gatherings and do not deeply realize that you are a sinner, that you need to repent, that you need an external redemption to remove your sin so that you can be reconciled to God — if you do not understand Christianity from this angle and level, you will certainly see it crookedly, and you will be seduced by the ideas of the prosperity gospel and charismaticism. Why? Because you have no focus. In fact, what is the whole Bible telling us? That the greatest problem for mankind is the problem of sin, the problem of our relationship with God. In our sin, we resist God, we hate God, we dislike God, so that we are separated from God. And a person separated from God must face the wrath of God’s judgment. This is the great background of our faith. If you leave this background, this worldview, then discussing Christianity is essentially meaningless. You also cannot explain why you see many pastors and elders whose lives are full of suffering, right? You say, “This person who believes in God, such a good life, still seems unhappy.” If you understand it from that perspective, you have completely distorted the faith. Only when you take the Day of Atonement as the center — building your faith entirely on “I need to be redeemed, my sins press heavily upon me, I need to deal with my sin, my guilt, my defilement, my original sin, my actual transgressions — these sins make me miserable. I am separated from God, I do not feel God’s love; I need to know God, understand God.” If you do not build your thinking and practice of the Christian faith in such a context, then we have completely gone astray. That is why today I stop here to speak specifically about the Day of Atonement. This is not just about the previous regulations; it is about why Israel took the Day of Atonement as the center — because for them, this was the most important thing. And for us, is it the most important thing? We need to reflect. If it is not, then we are already going astray.

As for everything else — whether in our work we are able to be above and not beneath, at the head and not the tail; whether our bodies are healthy; whether we have wealth — if God is willing, God can give us these things. So we firmly oppose the theology of poverty. We do not believe that Christians must be poor; that is unreasonable. But on the other hand, the center must be the Day of Atonement, the center must be atonement, the center must be the cross, the center must be Christ, the center must be that we earnestly obey God’s law in Christ. When we do this, God will help us in all circumstances. Perhaps He sees fit to give us wealth, to manage money; to give us health, to serve Him well; to give us many children, to glorify Him. Or He sees fit to give us some suffering to refine our lives, so that we learn to praise Him in suffering, or in desperate situations, even persecution, to praise Him, or even lead us to martyrdom. Whether it is what we consider good (in quotation marks) or what we consider bad — none of that is ultimately important. You must break free from this human-defined “good” and “bad”; otherwise, your faith will be very difficult to genuinely establish. You must hold firmly to this: why did Israel center on the Day of Atonement? Because they knew that when God atoned, the blessing of the people would be within them, and the former and latter rains would be in God. Only on the Day of Atonement, after the high priest completed all the sacrifices and came out to bless the people — the Aaronic blessing, which we read every Lord’s Day — could that blessing truly come upon God’s people. So for every Christian, you must turn your mind and thoughts around. Between the first and tenth day of the seventh month, earnestly reflect on your faith, and on the Day of Atonement, genuinely worship God and appear before Him. The greatest problem in our life is that we are separated from God; the greatest problem is that we have not seen the glorious face of God, and that is why our lives are a mess. So what reminder does this give us? The truth is, what I am saying — if you have not truly entered into faith, you may still find it very difficult to understand. What does it mean to see God’s glorious face? What is the joy of fellowship with God? You need to continually read Scripture, pray, commit to the church, and practice your relationship with God before you gradually experience even a glimpse. If you are immersed in the flesh and do not earnestly pursue, you will not feel what I am talking about. Your problem — sin, the need for fellowship with God — will remain just a concept, a piece of knowledge, and will not help you. Your mind is still on the world: “Oh, this client is coming, this business is here, my health, my...” You get caught up again and go back. After all these years of my ministry, what have I been teaching you? This: you have to turn this key point around. Once you turn it around, everything is straightened out. But is it easy to turn it around? It is quite difficult. Turning it around requires you to constantly read Scripture, pray, and pursue spiritual fervor before you can feel this. And in fact, I cannot help you with this either; I can only preach and teach, pray for you, asking God to lead us, that the Holy Spirit would guide us to this Day of Atonement, to meditate on the Lord Jesus who was crucified for us and shed His blood to redeem us. Then our spiritual life will be completely transformed, and we will be reconciled to God. Being reconciled to God is the key. As for other things — if God blesses, praise the Lord. If God does not give us a deeper trial, we also praise the Lord. This is a life centered on the Day of Atonement, and also a life centered on the cross. This tells us why the core of Christianity is a cross, a Christ hanging on it, a Christ who died in place of sinners — that is our core. The reason is right here. If you lack this background knowledge of the faith, you cannot understand Christ. It will seem strange to you. You might even say, “What benefit or good does this Christianity bring to our lives?” Then it becomes more and more confused, and you turn into the prosperity gospel. So may God lead us to truly build a faith centered on the Day of Atonement, to truly live out Jesus Christ before our eyes, crucified. May we truly live a life that glorifies God in this present age. Let me finish today’s sharing here. Thank you all.