Will you sit here while we go out to battle - Numbers Chapter 32 [The Bride of Christ]

This is a place where we talk about the bible. Jason Ryan Smurzynski looks into the Word of the Lord and just like you, desires to know what is actually going on. The Holy Spirit will open your ears to hear the truth and your minds to understand scripture. Together we will explore portions of the Bible that you don't normally hear at Sunday service at church. The veil will be lifted and the mystery of Jesus Christ will be explained.
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Transcript

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Oh, hey now. Dark Desert Highway here. Once again, I am in Lewiston, Idaho, and today we're gonna talk about the Bible. And here is an interesting story that I ran across the other day that had never really stuck out to me. But since I had begun in numbers, it wasn't too far away from the beginning of the chapters for me to notice it this time. So this is an interesting story about the children. Okay, the Lord had led the Hebrew nation out of captivity in Egypt. He had taken them through the Red Sea. The Red Sea had closed up on Pharaoh and his army. The Lord led them with a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire during the night. And if you look at the numbers of how many people actually left Egypt, you are talking about 700,000 to 1 million people because they didn't count the kids and the wives. That's just an estimate of the numbers that were given when a census was taken. And so you have to imagine a million people, a million people walking through the desert for oh, wait, they came to the mountain, the mountain on which God um had given them the Ten Commandments at. So you got a million people walking through the desert with a pillar of fire, visible pillar of fire, uh, during the night, and a very visible cloud that that led them during the day. So if you were to look up into the sky at any time, you would see a giant cloud formation moving with these people, and or at night, a giant pillar of fire that stayed there all night. So he led his people to Mount Sinai, where he introduced themself, himself, sorry, to the people. He had just led them out of captivity from Egypt. Now he's formally introducing himself to his people. He gives them the law, which is really a marriage contract when a husband would take a bride in Hebrew tradition, he would write down his expectations of his bride and present it to her before the marriage ceremony. Um and she would agree to the conditions of the marriage, and that's what the people did is they said, Yes, Lord, whatever you say, that we will do. Okay, so the law, the Ten Commandments, is given, and then he leads them up to the promised land. The day was at hand where the Lord was going to give them victory against giants, against the occupation of the promised land by the enemy, uh, because the enemy had occupied all of this land. Um, they served false gods, there were giants, um, they had walled cities, um, and you got a million people sitting there at a at a point where they sent in spies to go and seek out the land. The spies came back with fruit and of the land, and they said it's a good land, but there was some dissension among the people, and a rebellion was led, saying, you know, we're not gonna go up. Then the Lord was angry with his people, said, You're gonna wander for 40 years, you're not gonna go up and take this land because I am not with you. And then they decided, you know what, we're here anyways, you we might as well do it. And they were warned against doing it. They said, Don't do it. Um, the Lord's not with you. They went anyways, um they were destroyed, all those who were gone were were destroyed. And then the rest of the people that were left over wandered the desert for 40 years until the parents of the situation, the parents, the adults um of the situation at the border of the promised land had died and their children had grown up. Now it's time to be led into the into the occupation of the land. Um the time again has come for the people to fight. To fight, and the victory was theirs by the hand, by the mighty hand of the Lord. Sometimes, sometimes the Lord would turn armies against themselves, and they would slaughter each other, the enemy would slaughter each other. Um, sometimes he would send bees and uh to to disrupt the army. Um sometimes they he would send confusion, and I mean the battle was theirs, but it was notably their battle because the Lord led them. And here's a story in Numbers chapter 32 of a certain people group. It was the children of Reuben, the children of Gad. Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle, and when they saw the land of Jazar and the land of Gilead, that behold the place was a place for cattle. When the children of Gad and the children of Ruben came and spake unto Moses and to Eliazar the priest, and unto the princes of the congregation, saying, Adaroth and Dibon and Jezur, and Nimra and Heshban and Elia, and Shebam and Nebo and Boeon, even the country which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle. Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession and bring us not over the Jordan. The Jordan River was the dividing line where the Lord was going to lead the children of the Hebrew nation, the children that had grown up against the enemy that occupied the territory that was the promised land that Moses could not enter, uh, because out of anger he was instructed to strike the rock. No, no, no. He was instructed to speak to the rock, but out of anger and frustration he struck the rock. So for his disobedience to the Lord's command, it was said that he would not go and cross the river Jordan. Um, here is a a people, so they're not past the Jordan yet, they haven't crossed over the Jordan. Um, and here's a group of the children who had grown up after the 40-year wandering in the desert, and this people group look at the land, they look at what they got, they got cattle, and they have their children and their wives, um, a great number of people, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad. They had a very great multitude of cattle in verse one, and they're saying, Look, we haven't yet even begun to occupy the land that was promised to us by the Lord, but the land that we have already passed through, we like this land. And if we have found favor in your sight, let this land be ours, and we won't even have to go up with you through the Jordan River to go fight the enemy. Right? We'll just take this portion right here. And in five, wherefore they say, If we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan. And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, shall your brethren go out to war, and shall ye sit here? So wait a minute, you're saying that you want to stay here when all of your fellow Hebrews, brothers and sisters, and all that, right? It was a big crowd of family, while all the rest of us go on to fight and to take what was promised us. Six. And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go out to war and ye sit here? And wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which your Lord has given them? Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh Barnia to see the land. For when they went up into the valley of Eshkol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, that they should not go into the land which the Lord had given them. And the Lord's anger was kindled at the same time, and he swore, saying, Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swear unto Abraham and unto Isaac and unto Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me, save Caleb, the son of Jephanah, and Kennesite, and Joshua, the son of Nun, for they had wholly followed the Lord. And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was consumed. And behold, you are risen up in your father's place, an increase of sinful men to augment yet the fierce anger of the Lord towards Israel. For if you turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness, and you shall destroy all this people. So they come up to Moses and they say, We're fine with what we have so far. We know that the promised land is not yet ours because it's occupied by the enemy, and there is much war and contention in the future for our people, but what we have now satisfies us. So we just want what we have now because it's enough for even our great multitude of cattle, our wives, our children. We kind of just want to settle down. And like their fathers, Moses is saying, You're doing the same thing again. You have risen up in your father's stead, an increase of sinful men to augment yet more the fierce anger of the Lord towards Israel. For if you turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness, and you, by your actions, what you're doing right now, will destroy all of this people. Didn't you learn the first time? How many times do we have to go over and wander? Didn't you see what just happened? They, the children, were still in the presence of their parents while their parents wandered. Their parents wandered in circles, not accomplishing what the Lord had for them in their life to accomplish, the promised land. So their parents were disobedient, and as a consequence of their disobedience, they wandered until they died while their children were growing up and wandering with them. And then finally they get to the point where, hey, we got another shot at this, we got another chance at this. The Lord is having mercy on this next generation, and we see what the plan is, but we're satisfied with what we have already seen, and we want to take possession of this portion now without troubling ourselves with war or contention with the enemy. There are a lot of lessons in this one small chapter. And if you speech, if if you understand spiritual things, I'm sure that this says a lot to you without me having to explain it because it's pretty well explained here. So they petition Moses. Moses says, You're doing the same thing again. Watch out, because you're about to get all of us in serious trouble. It only took a small portion of people before to that led to the consequence of wandering. A very small portion of the people discouraged the other people from having faith in the Lord and taking possession of what was theirs by the promise of the Lord. You can stick by the promise of the Lord. If he says it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. Most of us experience this in consequence. Not many of us experience this in the freedom and the blessing of the Lord. If you have, that is a very wonderful point of your relationship with the Lord, but mostly I have experienced the consequence because I'm a knucklehead. And it takes once, twice, three, four, thirty-seven years of consequence before I start saying, Hey, the things that the Lord says, when he says, Don't touch this, that's for a reason. And I no longer need to find out that reason. I'm gonna take him at his word. So if he says don't do it, I'm at a place now where I will probably listen to what he says because I'm tired of experiencing the consequences when it's said that if you do this, this will happen. Enough of that has happened in my life to where I need to have some faith and start walking in the promise, even if there's a fight and a struggle that's on the other side of the river. So 15, if you turn away again from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness, and you shall destroy all this people. Sixteen, and they came near unto him and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle and cities for our little ones. But we ourselves will go ready armed before the children of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place. And our little ones shall dwell in the fenced cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return unto our houses until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance. And there was like forty years of war after this. It was a long war in order for the fullness of the land that had been promised to the Hebrew nation came under their power, and they had smoked their enemies. I like that word smoke. So they said, But we ourselves will go ready armed before the children of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place, and our little ones shall dwell in the fence cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return unto our houses until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance. For we will not inherit with them on yonder side of the Jordan or forward, because our inheritance is fallen to us on this side Jordan eastward. Moses said unto them, If ye will do this thing, if you will go arms before the Lord to war, and will go all of you armed over Jordan before the Lord until he hath driven out his enemies from before him, and the land be subdued before the Lord, then afterward ye shall return and be guiltless before the Lord and before Israel, and this land shall be your possession before the Lord. But if you will not do so, behold you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. Build you cities for your little ones, and folds for your sheep, and do that which hath proceeded out of your mouth. And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben spake unto Moses, saying, Thy servants will do as my Lord commandeth. Our little ones, our wives, our flocks, and all our cattle shall be there in the cities of Gilead, but thy servants will pass over every man armed for war before the Lord to battle, as my Lord saith. So one interesting thing that I've noticed in this is just because we have come about our portion of the promise doesn't mean that we should take possession without first seeing to our brothers and sisters, our fellow brethren, that they are able to conquer the enemy and take possession of their land. We should be willing to fight after we've got what's promised us because our brothers and sisters may have not yet come into possession of what they have been promised, and the enemy may still be occupying the territory that they're supposed to have freedom in. Oh, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, thank you, Holy Spirit. So, just a little story, and I thank you, Holy Spirit, and I thank you, Jesus, and I thank you, Father, Lord, thank you for your word. And that's it, guys. If you made it to the end of the story, hit that like and subscribe button, share this with your friends, um, and I'll see you next time.