Numbers 12:1 Bible Study | Episode 751

August 26, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers  12:1  Bible Study | Episode #751

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter twelve. Numbers, chapter twelve. And it is a, well, I guess a very, very meaty chapter. It's not a super, super long chapter. In fact, it's kind of short. But I'm going to spend a few days in it because it's got a lot of good stuff, got a lot of interesting understandings that you can get from it. It's based off an overarching story, but there are things that, they're currents that happen in here and things that. That happen in this passage that I think are of great importance for us to look at and to understand. And we can look at them, kind of pull them out separate from the story, and just kind of think about what God's saying and what God's thinking and how God is in the midst of this. But we can also go back into it and take them and put them in the context of the actual story and learn a lot about how we should live, really. And so, as we start, the first verse kind of lays the foundation of what's going on and what's happening here. And we can't get, as we study through this chapter, we can't get too far from this, because if we do, we'll miss out on the point. And on Wednesday night, we're studying through the book of Jonah, and a similar situation is happening. JonaH the prophet is a great prophet in the sense that he is considered a prophet in all three of the monotheistic religions in the world, including Islam. And he is a powerful prophet because of the work God did through him saving Nineveh. He is also an intensely flawed human being. And as you read Jonah, you leave there realizing what a great thing God did through him, what an amazing thing God did through him. And you also leave there amazed at how God could actually do that through a human being so flawed as Jonah was. And so the understanding that God can take that which is completely broken and do wonderful things is. Well, it's written throughout the story of Jonah. This story is a story that kind of hits at the heart of our issues, our humanity issues, and deals with some things that can be very difficult for us to deal with because of our history and because of many of the societal things that are going on around us. But I think it's important that you see it, because it's one of those stories that's really talked about, and it's one of those stories that gives us a definite insight into how God sees things and an understanding of things. Now, the children of Israel were in Egypt for 400 years. They were there for over 400 years. And they were. They lived in a area of Egypt where all the slaves lived or all the captured people lived. Don't think of slavery quite like you would think of it in the south, although it's very similar in that they can't leave and that they're owned by the whole society of Egypt. But, and when we talk about slaves in that regard, they were a huge labor population for the Egyptians. And back in those times, back in the two, three, 4000 years ago, whenever a nation was defeated, they would be taken into slavery most of the time and captured. That only began to change as the Romans took over, and they actually began to conquer people and then make them roman. And so that kind of changed the dynamic, how the world worked. But slavery continues even to this day. There is an intense slave trade in the Middle east and in parts of Asia, even at this moment. And so slavery is a regular thing. It is still going on, and it's been eradicated in a lot of parts of the world, but not completely. And so, as we're dealing with this, they were living there with the other slaves that were captured by the Egyptians, which would have been people from other nations. And obviously, the nations that are closer to Egypt, as you just look at it geographically, would have been the nations that would have been taken into captivity, along with the Jit, with the Israelites, and they would have lived in the same area with them. And so when the. When the Israelites were led out of Egypt, many of the people who had lived with them for generations now, remember we talked about 400 years longer than the. Longer than the length our nation has existed. We're talking about generational people. Many of them have lived with the Israelites for many, many years and had begun to worship Yahweh, worship the God of Abraham, and so they. They knew the God of Abraham. They worshiped the God of Abraham. They were. They were, in every way religiously. They were Jews because they had TakEN on their practices. They'd taken on the worship of their gods, and they were a part of them. And so when Moses delivered God's people out of Egypt, he not only delivered those who were pure from the pure Hebrew heritage, but he also delivered those who were worshippers of Yahweh. And they went with them out of Egypt. And so they left with them. And that understanding is important. Now, moses, when he went to deliver them out of eGypt, had spent 40 years in the wilderness with the MidIANites. His father in law, jethro, and HIs family, he took care of them. If you've ever watched the ten commandments, that's that story where the girls, the ladies are trying to feed their flocks at the well, and some other guys come up and TRy to push their flocks out of the way and take their water. And moses comes out because he is a warrior. He was raised as an egyptian prince. He defeats them, and. Well, he just whoops them. If you want to know it from a southern perspective, he just whoops them. And he. All the girls of. All the daughters of Jethro are swooning for him. And, you know, that's. It's a made up story of how he became a son in law of Jethro. But he did. He married Sephora. And she was a midianite, which is not a Hebrew. She was not jewish, but she might have been a Semite. And that is. She's from the. From the line of Siem Shim. I mean, and so she was closer, you know, if you want to go down the neurotic tree. She was closer to him than maybe somebody who was not. And so she. She was his wife. And then he goes and delivers the people out of Egypt. He's not married to a hebrew woman. He goes and gets the ten Commandments, and he's. And. And. And the law of God. And there are the. In that law, there are prohibition. Prohibitions against marrying people from other nations. Now, that prohibition is not against them because of their. Their family background. That prohibition is based off of their spiritual background. It's based off of whether or not they are, whether. Whether or not they're believers, whether or not they're worshipers of Yahweh. Because God wants holy and righteous children to be born of his people. He wants a people that are raising children who chase after him and who are like, to the world. And so he does not want them to intermarry with the nations who worship other gods. Now, you need to get that. He does not want his people to be marrying people who are worshippers of other gods. And in the modern context, that would be people who are not believers in Christ. And so understanding that principle is found in the Old Testament and the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament gives us a strict prohibition against marrying unbelievers. It's called being unevenly yoked, meaning tied to someone who's not a believer. That also deals with business. Also, you're not supposed to get into business practices or go into business with somebody who's a non believer. You also, but primarily, you're not supposed to marry people who are not believers and people who are not born again, who are not worshiping and seeking after God. You should be yoked with those who are seeking after goddess. And that is. That's a clear kind of teaching from scripture that just, you can't get away from. And you go, well, how do I do business? You can do business with non believers. You can. You can be like, to non believers. The Bible says, be in the world but not of the world. You can, you can totally be a part of what goes on in commerce and what goes on in society and yet not tie yourself to someone who does not have the fundamental same understanding of the universe and understanding of. Of eternality that you do. You can do business with unbelievers. You just can't be tied with them as partners, business partners. And you can't be tied with someone as a life partner, someone who's a believer. You can't be married to a non believer. You got to be married to people who are believers. And so Miriam and Adam. That's what it says in verse one. Then Miriam and Aaron. Miriam is Moses sister, and Aaron is Moses brother. Now, you do need to realize that they were raised by Moses's actual parents, and they were raised as slaves. Moses was raised in. In the. In Pharaoh's house as a. As a prince of Egypt. And so they were married. They were. They were raised differently. The reason Moses was raised in Pharaoh's house is because Pharaoh killed the. Was killing the firstborn of Egypt, I mean, of Israel. And the Egyptians were out there slaughtering them. And you know the story, and we've already done that story of how God delivered him in the, in the basket to one of Pharaoh's daughters, really, his sister. And he was raised as. He was raised as an Egyptian, so they didn't grow up together. But they were partners in this. In this. In this venture, and the venture is following God's will and doing God's will, leading God's people out. So. So Aaron was. And his family became the levite priesthood. And Miriam was right there in the middle of it. You can't get past that. She was. She was right there in the middle of all the things that were going on and leading and being a part of Moses's family and being influential in how things developed. She is seen regularly in scripture. She is a. She's a leader of God's people, and she speaks for God. And she. She stands up for the things that are going on for God. And so it's important that you see that God is not just God's not being mean to her for no reason. He's disciplined her in this situation for a very important reason, because she is a integral, important leader of God's people as they go on this journey to God's best. And so Miriam is important. And, in fact, she's mentioned first in this. In this grouping of individuals, Miriam and Aaron. It says then Miriam and Aaron, which means, probably Miriam was the primary one. And we get that from this passage for sure, spoke against Moses because of the ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an ethiopian woman. Now, that's not a. It's not a. It's not a question here of how this story starts and what the issue is that he's going to deal with, with them there. It's just not a question here. Now, it says Ethiopia, and the King James and Niv says Cushite and Kush is Ethiopia here and throughout scripture, you need to remember that, because Kush is ethiopian. Ethiopia is a very. Is mentioned a lot in the prophecies, because Ethiopia, if you remember the ethiopian eunuch. And Ethiopia is a spiritual hub of belief in Christianity and always has been. And so it's kind of one of those places you need to remember, Cush is Ethiopia. And it says here that they spoke against Moses because of the ethiopian woman he had married. Now, we don't know if Zipporah had died of. We don't know if he was taking a second wife. We don't know what the implications are in this situation, but we do know that the reason they spoke against Moses was because he had taken an ethiopian wife. And it doesn't say because they'd taken a wife who worshiped other gods. It didn't say he'd taken a wife that had worshipped the ethiopian pagan gods. It says that he'd taken an ethiopian wife, which means that she was likely in skin color far different than Moses. Now, I'm not saying that Moses was, you know, a Viking, white, blue eyed guy, because he probably wasn't. He probably was olive skin colored, or at least he was. He was. He was not. He was not a. A Viking from. From. Or from. From the isles of England. He was not that. But he was not a dark skinned Ethiopian either. He was something else. Probably not asian looking either, but he was something else. And this woman was an Ethiopian, which means she would have been pretty damp skinned if, you know, if you just. I mean, it's just kind of obvious here. And we as people of faith and we as believers, we're going to do it with these issues and be straightforward about them. We're not going to hide from them. We're going to talk about race, if we need to talk about it, when we're in Bible study. And this is purely a racial issue. It really is. They talk bad about him, Miriam being the primary one, because he married a black woman. I mean, that's not really hard to figure out here. It's pretty plain in the language. And I mentioned Jonah. Jonah hated Nineveh because the nine mites were a different race and they were a cruel people. They were a terrible people. Historically, their acts of violence and devastation are well known in history, and their practices are well known in history. And Jonah did not. He hated them because they were nine bites. He hated them because they were Assyrians and there was reason not to like them as Assyrians, and there was reason. But God told him to go preach repentance to them and they repented. And he's still not happy about it because he. He hated the Assyrians. All right? Miriam is not happy because Moses married a black woman and there's just not any. There's not any way to get around that. And she starts murmuring against him. She starts speaking out against him and she takes a position, and we'll see this net tomorrow. She takes the position. I speak for God also. And she does that. That's not a question when. That. When she asks that question is not a question. But the question is, where is her heart in this matter? And the issue is not whether or not Moses could marry a ethiopian woman. Quite clearly, from the rest of the story, you're going to get that. He could. That. That's not the issue. The issue is whether or not Moses was yoked with a believer. Zaporo was a believer. She was a believer in Yahweh she knew Moses when he went and saw the Lord God in the burning bush. And she believed in that same word of God. And so even though she was from another race, she was acceptable for Moses wife, quite obviously. And this ethiopian woman, nowhere in scripture does it say that she was not a believer. In fact, it's pretty clear she was. Moses would not have broken God's law, and God would not have been okay with Moses marrying a people from the nations. If they were worshippers of other gods, God would not have been okay with that, but he was with Moses. And that leads us to an obvious conclusion, and that is that this Woman was a believer in Yahweh. Why? Because probably generations passed in her heritage. Her family began to believe and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because they had lived with the, they'd live with, with the Jews in Goshen, which is the area where the slaves lived in Egypt. And so they were a part of the family of God going out, being delivered through the blood of the lamb under go. They went through the baptism of the Red Sea. They met God at the mountainous. They heard the revelation of God, they revealed God, and they were on their way to the promised land. And Moses either because he was taking a second wife, which, I mean, I'm gonna tell you in the New Testament, that's not what we should do, but it was not forbidden in the Old Testament. Abraham had multiple wives. Either he was taken a second wife or his ZIpul was dead and he married a CuSHioN woman. Now that, the whole point here is that she didn't like them because they were a different race. And God's quite clearly against that. It's going to be real hard to walk in the power of God if you hate people because of, purely because of their skin color, or, and I don't even think this culturally they're different. I don't even think that this ethiopian woman was probably culturally different. She was probably exactly the same. She was just black. And Miriam didn't like that, so she started talking bad about him. And things gonna go downhill from here for her and Aaron, because God does nothing. He is not okay with you hating other people for any reason, but he's sure not okay with you hating them because of their skin color. That's, I mean, that's. I think that's just pretty much obvious from scripture. And it's obvious in the way God dealt with other people from other races in Jesus Christ. When he had his ministry on the earth, Jesus was very favorable toward roman soldiers. I don't know if you noticed that or not. And they were not jews. He even had an interaction with the sidonian woman where he said, I can't give you anything. I got to give it to the Jews. And she said, even the does get the crumbs. And he recognized great faith in her, gave her what she asked for. Jesus had women around him all the time, so it was not uncommon for Jesus to understand that women. Women take on great roles of leadership in the movement of God. So did Miriam. But when you hate in your heart others, for whatever reason, for whatever your experiences are, for whatever your background is, you limit your ability to actually serve God, because you can hate what God loves and love God. There's a dichotomy. That's a problem there. And so this story is basically about that. There's a lot to learn from it other than that, but that's what this story's about. And it's important that we kind of get it. It's important that we kind of get it and understand it. I pray that we will. I know we will, because God is love, and we have the love of God in us through his son, Jesus Christ.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.