Numbers 31:21-24 Bible Study | Episode 821

December 2, 2024

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

Numbers 31:21-24  Bible Study | Episode #821

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. Numbers, chapter 31, and verse 21 through 24. And we're dealing with the aftermath of the midianite affair, the vengeance God took on the Medianites. Now, as you're looking at this, and as I talked about yesterday, God desires mercy, not vengeance. He desires grace, and he desires his goodness to come to us, not his vengeance upon us. In fact, we were not made for that purpose. We were not made for his vengeance. In fact, hell was made for the devil and his angels. It was not made for humanity. But that does not mean that humanity does not experience that. And it does not mean that God is not going to deal with humanity and its sinfulness. But when you're dealing with humanity, and when you're dealing with humanity, sinfulness, and even when God uses mankind, even when God uses human beings as an instrument of his judgment, it is still not his preferred position. It's what he, it's not what he prefers. It's not what he desires. In fact, the Bible said, says that God would, that none should perish, but all should have eternal life. God does not want or desire for us to experience the side of him that is his wrath and judgment. He wants us to be able to see and recognize his holiness. He wants us to be able to understand that he is a holy God. He wants us to be able to understand that his desire and who he is emanates from that holiness. But once we know that he desires to be intimate with us, he desires his goodness, his grace, his beauty, his wonder, his majesty, all of the things that are who he is, he wants us to know and experience it. So when God uses, and he does use humanity as an instrument of his wrath, in fact, in fact, we're going to see tonight in the book of the Revelation at the start of chapter six, we're going to see that God uses even some of the things that are human in the book of the revelation that we consider to be the most evil. He's going to use them for his judgment, his judgment against the peoples of the earth, his judgment against the rulers of the earth. And so understanding that kind of getting that in your head, that God does use us for his wrath, to execute his wrath and judgment is important. And he used his children, the children of Israel, to do that. Now, when that happens, and even though they were a tool of his wrath and judgment, they had to be cleansed before they could re enter the camp. They couldn't just come back into the camp because they were a tool, or they were a vessel of that wrath and judgment. And the reason they couldn't come in the camp in that way is because they were not meant for that. That's not our original purpose, is to be his instruments of his wrath and judgment. If they were doing exactly what God, in the sense of what God had always desired for humanity, then they would have never had any reason not to be separated from his people in his camp. That wouldn't have happened. But because they are, they have to be cleansed. The things that they. That they bring back from executing his wrath and judgment, the men who are part of that, they have to stay outside the camp for seven days. It says in verse 21. Then Eliezer the priest said to the men of war who had gone to battle, this is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses. Only the gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin and the lead. Everything that can endure fire, you shall put through the fire, and it shall be clean. And it shall be purified with water, with water purification. But all that cannot endure fire, you shall put through the water, and you shall wash your clothes on the 7th day and be clean. And after that, you may come into the camp. What God is saying to them is he's saying to them that there is going to be a cleansing aspect of. Of going out to war and being a tool of my vengeance and wrath. I need to cleanse you from that. Because that is not what I made you ultimately for I am using you for that. You were made to have dominion over the earth. You were made to have control and power over the earth. But you were not made to have to deal with that, with sin, especially sin of the rest of humanity. You are not made for that. And so I'm going to have you cleansed. Now, he goes into how we do that. Well, all the things that they were wearing that were gold, silver, bronze, iron. All the metals that they were wearing, they had to pass it through the fire, which is a picture of the Holy Spirit, and then they had to wash it with the water, which is another picture of the Holy Spirit. You've got the fire of God's cleansing, and then you've got the washing of God's cleansing. And notice those are two aspects of the Holy Spirit. One of them is a refining aspect. The fire. When God, the fire of the Holy Spirit's upon us, God is refining us. He is burning out those things that need to be, that are imperfections, impurities. That's what the refining process is for. Metal, it's just, it's just you're melting it and getting out the things that are in the metal, whether they be metals or not. Oftentimes, the first couple of refinings get rid of dross, the things that, that aren't actually metal. And then the further refining of metal usually is to remove different types of metal. And you go, well, how do they do that? Well, metal melts at different temperatures, different types of metal does. And so you can melt out the metal that you want or melt out the metal that you don't want, depending on which one has the lower temperature, and you refine that metal down to a pure form of what it is. And the work of the Holy Spirit in refining us, he refines us down to the purest form of what God desires us to be. And that sometimes requires us to be go through an intense process of being refined. I mean, it's a, and a lot of christians really run from this. When the Holy Spirit begins to refine them and really begins to, it's an intense pressure process. And let me say this, it happens for us throughout our lives. God refines us and prepares us for a different day in a different time, a different season. In many ways, I feel like that's going on with me right now in some things. And you can just tell because there's an intensity about it. There's a reflection back on the things that you weren't and the things that God would desire you to be, how you haven't lived up to the standard. That's a refining. It's not God judging you. It's God really making that alive and known to you so that you can move forward in his goodness. That refining, that pressure of that refining, that heat of that refining is memorable. It's memorable when you go through it, and it's life changing. And so when God refines us by the fire, he, he is. He is really making a permanent change. No more. No more impurities, no more dross, no more other metals that we're not meant to be. We're purified and made exactly the way he wants and desires for us to be. And so that purification of the Holy Spirit is really good. Now you go, well, then, why do you need the water? Well, the water washes off, remember, water just washes off the dirt right now. And that really takes us to that story of Jesus and his disciples in the upper room and wanting to wash their feet. And Peter saying, well, I don't want you to watch. That's not right for you to wash my feet. And Jesus said, well, if I can't wash your feet, you can have no part in me. And Peter says, peter says to him, well, then wash my whole body. And Jesus says, your whole body doesn't need to be clean. That's already been handled. I've handled that. I'm just washing the world off your feet. And he doesn't say, I'm washing the world off your feet, but he says, you need to be. Your feet need to be clean. And we went, why? Because he'd been walking in the world. And the cleansing that God gives us of water is the cleaning of the world off of us in preparation for us to receive the bread of life and receive his truth and receive his strength and power. It's a very powerful picture of God and his serving us by cleaning us with the Holy Spirit. And so when we're out in the world, and these guys definitely were out in the world, when we're out in the world doing the things that are necessary for God's purposes to take place, we're going to deal with worldly things. And when we're dealing with these worldly things, we're going to be, well, we're going to be in the fire. We're going to be in the fire, and we're going to be needing to be purified. And as that happens, well, God does the big stuff that he does, and so we've got to have it washed off. We got to have the things of this world washed off. And that's really what you're doing on Sunday morning during our first altar call. During that, you're a priest, and so you have access to the holy of holies. And. And in the process of going through the temple or in the process of going through the tabernacle, there's a. There's a laverne, which is a pool of water. And it was for the priests to clean themselves off before they went into the temple and, or the tabernacle, which, whichever one they were serving in at that time, and they would clean themselves off in preparation to go in and meet with God. Well, that's really what you're doing during the singing. You're entering his gates with Thanksgiving. You're entering a time where you're getting to reflect and prepare yourself. Then you wash, then you offer yourself as a sacrifice to him. You're the sacrifice. And then you enter into the temple and you go through the outer courts and the inner courts, and then the holy of holies. And those pictures are just pure pictures of preparing to meet with God. And the refining process happens in events of our lives. And the washing process takes place a lot, all the time, weekly, you know, daily. You can even go through the process daily of dealing with it. And that's why Jesus, in the, in the prayer he, he gave to his disciples to, to learn how to pray, he says, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. That's kind of a washing of the, that's the water washing, water purification. And not everything that goes through the water can endure the fire. Not everything in our life is going to be a fire. Some of it just needs to be washed. And they had to stay out the camp seven days. They had to go through a complete process before they could come back in. Why? Well, because they weren't made for that. God used them in that purpose, but that was not the original purpose for their being made. And so God had to refine, had to, he had to prepare them for those things. God did not want us to have to go through this process of, of being the, the hand of his judgment wrath. But sometimes we are. And when that happens, well, we got to go, we got to go through a very specific process of being refined, and that's what they did. And so I pray that you'll think about that, not just think about being the, being the wrath of God, because oftentimes we're not going to be that. Most of the time, we're nothing. David was, but Solomon wasn't. And so David couldn't build the temple. He could prepare it, but only Solomon could build it, because David was a man of blood. Now, God made him that way. God used him for that purpose. That was the whole reason he was to become king, is to solidify God's rule over his people. But he couldn't build the temple. It's a plan of God for our lives in view of the sin that lives in the world, that is in the world that was brought by man. And when we think about all these things, I want you to think about how God, in the midst of you going through these issues of the world, how he refines you, how he cleanses you and how he changes you permanently and makes you a different person because of his goodness and grace, and because he does require desire, grace and not sacrifice.

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.