Numbers 31:1-12 Bible Study | Episode 819

November 28, 2024

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

Numbers 31:1-12  Bible Study | Episode #819

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 31. We've moved into numbers, chapter 31, not far from the end of the book of Numbers, but we're dealing with a passage. The whole chapter deals with this passage, but we're dealing with a passage about the war with Midian or the battle with the Midianites. Now, I want to remind you of a few things before we get into this passage. I want to remind you that Moses, when he was in the wilderness for 40 years, he took up with. Well, he was accepted and lived with a Midianite Sheik, a powerful man of Midian named Jethro. And he married Jethro's daughter, Sapporo. And so Moses had a relationship with the Midianites, a strong relationship with the Midianites, one in which he knew their culture, knew the people, the people knew who Moses was. The people of Midian understood what Moses was doing, what he was trying to get done. And Moses was someone who was respected among Midianites. And yet, in the midst of all that he did, when the children of Israel come out of Egypt and Moses is leading them, the Midianites do everything they can to undermine Moses. They do everything they can to undermine the people, the culture, the society, the teachings of God. And they stand in the way of the Israelites and into the promised land. And then they do their best to figure out how to attack Israel. And so they are in every possible way. They are, in every possible way an enemy of Israel and have been with no reason at all, really no purpose to it. Moses and the Israelites are not trying to take the Midianites land. In fact, many times in this struggle with the Midianites, Moses is sentence envoys promising to pass through their land, stay on the road, and never not take one thing. Not take one thing from the property. Excuse me, not take one thing from the property of the Midianites, but that that was not sufficient for them. Like I said, they sent their women to entice the Israelites. They attack the Israelites, they block the Israelites. And even this whole thing with the donkey speaking, that surrounded some of the. That also involved the Midianites. And so when you're looking at this passage, you're seeing someone who is a group of people, people who are actively attacking and actively undermining the Israelites. And so what does God say about that? How does God deal with that? Well, this is how God deals with it. The Lord said, spoke to Moses, saying, avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterwards, you shall be gathered to your people. So the last thing Moses is going to do as the leader of the Israelites is going to. Is going to be removed this problem that is going to be a festering sore on Israel. Remove this problem as soon as you can. So he says, afterwards you shall be gathered to your people, meaning that he's going to pass away. So Moses spoke to the people, saying, are men among you for the war? That they may go against Midian to execute the lord's vengeance on Midian. Now, remember, Israel's a lot of people. They're at least 600,000, perhaps as many as a million. But, but they are, they are a large group of people in this area at this time, he says. He says you shall send a thousand from each tribe of Israel to the war. So there's only going to be 12,000 men go to war against the Midianites, who are a fairly large group of people also, he says. So they were provided, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, 12,000 on for war. Now, this has been something that has been pretty historical over, over the generations of the past. Pretty is, it is a historical truth that Israel has always gone to war with less, usually, than whoever they're fighting against, and many times a lot less, many times. An extraordinarily, what would be, from a worldly perspective, an unbelievably less group of people. They just don't have the numbers. In fact, in the world today, there's somewhere around 14 to 15 million jewish people. In Israel, there's about 7 million of them. And in the United States, there's about seven and a half million. And in the rest of the world, there's about 500,000. So the jewish people are pretty much located in two places in the world, Israel and here. And we actually, in the United States, have as many jewish people or more jewish people than they have in Israel. And so there never been a great number. And when you take into account the number that were killed during the Holocaust and the numbers that have been killed in what are called pogroms, which would be a racially motivated attack on the israelite or on the jewish people throughout history, they have been under persecution and attack. Well, they've been under persecution and attacks since 70 ad, when the. When Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and scattered the people and basically removed any jewish leadership or jewish governance in what is Israel today. They have. There are just so many places that they're not there anymore. They're not among that group of people. There used to be strong jewish populations throughout Africa, throughout Europe, throughout most of what is western Asia. And there were a lot of jewish populations even in the north, north and South Americas. Those populations have tended to stream back to Israel in fulfillment of prophecy that God had given them, that they would come back. And they have come back. And so when they go to war, they usually go to war against a smaller population. And in all actuality, even in the conflict that they're facing right now in what is called the Gaza Strip or the area that used to be owned by the Philistines, we call it the Gaza Strip. It's Gaza. Ekron, Ashklon, those areas used to be philistine cities before Israel removed the Philistines from, uh, from their lands. Uh, that. That area has been theirs for. Well, historically been theirs for 3500 years, for. For, uh, 3000 years. And, uh, the people they're fighting against, uh, are. Have no qualms about killing every one of them. And, uh, that has been the case for, uh, many, many, many millennia. It's not something that is new and understanding that. Understanding how that works, understanding how Israel has survived, is a. It is only that God would have kept them from perishing from the face of the earth. Because there is no way they could survive as a people, as a unique culture in the way that they have survived. There is just no way they could have done it without. Without God. Without God being in the middle of it, without God protecting them, without God able to use a thousand defeat to defeat 10,000. And they have no choice but to protect themselves because over the three millennia, they have been killed and driven out of places for generation after generation. And it says, verse six. And Moses sent them to a thousand from each tribe, together with Pinehos, the son of Eleazar, the priest, and the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. They warned against, they warned against Midianite, as the lord commanded. Moses. And they killed every male. They killed the king of Midian with the rest of their slain. Evie recom zur her Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam, the son of Beor with the sword. Remember, he was a part of that story. Barak and Balaam, they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and the little ones. And they took his plunder, all the cattle and their flocks and all their goods and all their cities in the places where they lived and all their encampments they burned with fire. And they took all the spurrels and all the plunder, both man and a beast. Then they brought the captives and the plunder and the spur to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the people of Israel at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. Now you need to see that this is historically, even though we live in days and times where we have what is limited war, that has not been the case in human history. That's not been the case in the last 100 years. That's not been how war has been conducted, the limits placed on war by really, what is the United States? Because nowhere else in the world do they fight limited war. They're not fighting limited war in Ukraine and Russia today. They're not fighting the wars that are going on in sub saharan Africa, right below the saharan desert. None of those wars are limited wars. They're not limited conflicts. The conflicts of the world, generally speaking, are total war. They're total war against whoever you're fighting against. And God told them to go and destroy the Midianites. Don't leave them able to be a thorn in your side for generations to come. I want you to understand, and you need to get this, that Israel has had the ability, even in modern times, to totally destroy their neighbors and drive them out of lands, have had the easy ability to do that because of the strength of their society, the strength of their military, their ability to take technology and make it better and stronger. They have the ability to attack and destroy their neighbors and drive them completely out and have territory three, 4510 times the size of the territory that they possess today. Many times they have trade traded. They've traded land for peace. They traded the Sinai desert, which they took from the Egyptians, for peace with the Egyptians. They have in many, many ways sued for peace over the generations. They have. And when they are attacked by someone ruthlessly and mercy, merciful, mercilessly. Easy for me to say. Without mercy. When they've been attacked without mercy. They have. They really don't have any choice. They're the area that they live in. The. The breadth of the area they live in is just under 100 miles wide. They cannot afford to give an inch. And they have fault for that land. And they have done their best to not kill civilians. Even though historically there really isn't been civilians. And you can say, well, the United States has not fought total war. Well, we did. We really did. We dropped two atomic bombs on two cities. We firebombed the german cities. And killed more in the german cities than we did the japanese cities with our bombing campaigns. We have fought total war. Why? Because total war gets to the end of the matter quickly. And we have done our best since World War two to not do that. And we painfully felt the brunt of that. By not totally destroying our enemies. You could say for good or for bad. Whether or not we should or shouldn't have done that. But the truth is that very few people in human history. Have fought a wars that were not total wars. And Israel in the United States. Are two primary nations in world history. That have actually tried to do that. To not fight total wars against their enemies. God told Moses to totally destroy the Midianites, and they did. They didn't do exactly what God told them to do. Which is going to become a historical issue for Israel. It's going to become an issue for a long, long time. Because the Israelites have a tendency not to totally destroy their enemies. Unlike most of the people groups that have gone to war for the last three millennium. They have a history in the Bible of not removing their enemies from them. And so we learn that. That that has consequences when you don't eradicate. And the only way for me to describe the. The. The Canaanites is they are a people who practice a religious practice that is evil. They are. They are. They are actively in the practice of human sacrifice. They are. They are actively in the practice of child sacrifice. And God does not want them around his people. And when the Midianites are unwilling to have a relationship with Moses and God's people. Even though Moses makes overtures of peace to them. And they actively choose to attack him, actively choose to be a part of that, God puts that to an end. And he puts it to an end quickly. And so I would say to you today that maybe studying through chapter 31 of numbers. Is really a good history lesson for us on how historically war has taken place and how God has directed his people to handle those things and understanding that the enemies of God in the world and there are enemies of God. Communism is godless and it seeks to destroy God. There are the other major world religion seeks to destroy the Israelites and ultimately the great Satan which they call us. We need to understand that and we need to understand that just because we can kill you from 5000 miles away and nobody has to put a boot on the ground to do it doesn't mean that the people that we're dealing with are not willing to totally do everything they can to utterly destroy us. We've seen that. We know that we've experienced it and we shouldn't forget.

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.