SPEAKER_00: We often assume that one's safety is about location.
SPEAKER_00: If we live inside of the right borders or we're protected by the strongest military, if our defenses are secure enough, then we think that we are secure.
SPEAKER_00: That's how nations think.
SPEAKER_00: You hear in the news even of the missile attacks in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to be leading a group there in May, and it's so easy for people to think and wonder is it safe there right now?
SPEAKER_00: You graph out or map out safety onto a location.
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, that is how nations think.
SPEAKER_00: And nations think if they can defend their borders or build high enough walls or whatnot, then they'll be secure.
SPEAKER_00: But that is just not what history reveals, is it?
SPEAKER_00: History has stories of one strong nation after another that falls.
SPEAKER_00: Think of even inside of the Bible, think of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how confident they were that they were impenetrable?
SPEAKER_00: But somebody forgot to close the aqueduct.
SPEAKER_00: Think of Troy and mythology.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the unconquerable city.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, somebody gave us a nice gift.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome that in.
SPEAKER_00: In American history, think of Mexico, a massive army with an ocean, a literal ocean between them and their enemies, but no way to defend against smallpox.
SPEAKER_00: Empires with the strongest armies have disappeared practically overnight.
SPEAKER_00: Borders didn't save them, oceans didn't save them, because security is never about geography.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for strong countries, of course, and for border security and legal immigration and all of that, but there's such a temptation to map on what is true of nations onto our own thinking and trust our safety in our location.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Chronicles chapter 5 is about that illusion.
SPEAKER_00: More to the point, it's about the illusion that your own security spiritually can be held on to based upon the kind of family you were born into, based upon your location.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Chronicles, so far, we have seen a very interesting point that I did not appreciate until a month ago when we started teaching through 1 Chronicles.
SPEAKER_00: But have you noticed that, and I'm not sure this will hold through all 12 tribes, but it's holding through these first five or so.
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that the personalities of the founder of the tribe is now evident in the life of that tribe, you know, centuries later?
SPEAKER_00: And then that it's also evident in the geography of the tribe.
SPEAKER_00: That's obvious with Judah.
SPEAKER_00: They were blessed by God and they got the biggest land.
SPEAKER_00: That was obvious with Levi.
SPEAKER_00: They were cursed by God and scattered because of the conduct of Levi, the individual.
SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, in the promised land, they don't get any land.
SPEAKER_00: Simeon was divisive, and yet he knew how to hold on to Judah's leg for protection.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the promised land, that's exactly what happens with the tribe of Simeon.
SPEAKER_00: They're literally surrounded by Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Benjamin, the smallest tribe, will look at him in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: It's true with him as well.
SPEAKER_00: But he found security by hiding in his older brother Shadow, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00: And the same is true in the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: Benjamin exists even as a tribe because it held on to Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Judah was the tribe that had the king.
SPEAKER_00: Judah was the tribe that had the promise.
SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't arbitrary.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see a little bit of that this evening.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't arbitrary.
SPEAKER_00: Judah was the fourth.
SPEAKER_00: You would imagine that the first would receive the promise.
SPEAKER_00: The first would receive the birthright.
SPEAKER_00: The first would receive the blessing.
SPEAKER_00: If Israel, the person, Jacob, if he was going to show favor any of his kids, you would imagine it would be the first.
SPEAKER_00: Then it should have been his.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Reuben reminds us that of that, that the birthright should be his.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't become his.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see why tonight he forfeits it.
SPEAKER_00: The second and the third, they forfeit it, Simeon and Levi, because of their own conduct.
SPEAKER_00: And so it falls to the fourth.
SPEAKER_00: The promise is with Judah because number one, two, and three struck out.
SPEAKER_00: Now we get to Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, who's a half-brother.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Joseph was, in a sense, the most blessed of the tribes.
SPEAKER_00: He was the last there in the line.
SPEAKER_00: He was the most blessed.
SPEAKER_00: He was the one that was sold into slavery, taken off into Egypt, became the prime minister.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, where's the tribe of Joseph?
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he was so blessed by God that they divided in half and split in two.
SPEAKER_00: Manasseh and Ephraim came from Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see Manasseh tonight.
SPEAKER_00: But first we're going to begin with Reuben in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: The sons of Reuben, who was the firstborn of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: These people were positioned.
SPEAKER_00: They were armed.
SPEAKER_00: They were established.
SPEAKER_00: And they were going to fall.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben and Gad and Manasseh don't fall because they were weak.
SPEAKER_00: They don't fall because they lack weapons.
SPEAKER_00: The text will make that point tonight.
SPEAKER_00: They fell because they broke faith with the God of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: Their geography couldn't save them.
SPEAKER_00: Their inheritance couldn't save them.
SPEAKER_00: Only their covenant faith could, and that's the one thing they didn't hold on to.
SPEAKER_00: This affects us now.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so many thousands of years later, after the 12 tribes, it still affects us because we are tempted to think that if we were born into the right family, if we're given the right opportunities, if we have enough strength, if we won enough battles, then we'll be secure in our relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We think that birthright protects, power protects, position protects.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the world thinks.
SPEAKER_00: But this chapter exists to dismantle that assumption.
SPEAKER_00: By the end, we're going to see that Reuben loses what they were given.
SPEAKER_00: Gad fought for what they were given, and they forfeit it because they forgot the God who gave it.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to give you a formula you can follow along tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I made a mathematical formula about this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: The privilege and power formula.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good name for a book, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: The privilege and power formula.
SPEAKER_00: I should write that down.
SPEAKER_00: The privilege and power formula, copyright 2026.
SPEAKER_00: Emanuel Bible Church, here you go.
SPEAKER_00: The privilege and power formula.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna use this formula because there's a basic truth that God advances his kingdom through covenant faithfulness, not natural privilege, and not military strength.
SPEAKER_00: Privilege and power cannot preserve what faithlessness forfeits.
SPEAKER_00: So, first part of the formula: natural privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Natural privilege.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Reuben had.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 1 that they were the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben was literally the oldest of Jacob's children.
SPEAKER_00: He was truly the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, sometimes the Bible uses the term firstborn for somebody who's not actually the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Because firstborn is intentionally the position of promise, the one who inherits the birthright.
SPEAKER_00: But if you've learned anything by now in the Bible, you recognize that God doesn't always choose the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the favor trickles down the family line.
SPEAKER_00: If you recall last week we saw that Simeon showed that proximity to Judah brought security, that God rescued through their proximity to the promised king.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense in which Reuben thought that protection should have been his, but he forfeited it.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, Judah got privilege, Joseph got privilege, Judah got leadership, but Reuben got neither.
SPEAKER_00: And this is going back to Genesis 35.
SPEAKER_00: You can flip your Bibles over to Genesis 35 to see what Reuben does.
SPEAKER_00: This is another one of those stories.
SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of the stories that are critical in 1 Chronicles, they're not flannographed for the little kids.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not in the big picture storybook Bible or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 35 tells the story of the death of Benjamin's mother.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 35 is where God blesses Jacob, and Jacob goes on and begins to have his 12 tribes, the 12 children.
SPEAKER_00: But verse 16, they journeyed from Bethel and they were some distance away.
SPEAKER_00: From Ephrath, Rachel went to labor.
SPEAKER_00: She had hard labor.
SPEAKER_00: And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, Don't fear, because you're having another son.
SPEAKER_00: As her soul was departing for her, as she was laying there dying, she called his name Benene.
SPEAKER_00: But his father didn't like that name, renamed the son Benjamin, which is such a better name.
SPEAKER_00: At least in English, anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Benjamin is way better than Ben Ani.
SPEAKER_00: Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin.
SPEAKER_00: She was buried on the way to Paphra, that is Bethlehem, now called Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Rachel weeping section.
SPEAKER_00: This becomes a pattern in the New Testament for Christ in the Gospel of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: That the slaughter of the infants, the slaughter of the newborn is, in a sense, reenacting this.
SPEAKER_00: This is what a significant event this is in Israel's history.
SPEAKER_00: Is Rachel died, she mourned, she had tears.
SPEAKER_00: These tears are representing the exile of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They do not have the promised land yet.
SPEAKER_00: She's dying outside of Bethlehem, but they don't get to stay there.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to end up in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: The twelve tribes will end up in Egypt and grow into a nation.
SPEAKER_00: The tears that Rachel sheds, in a sense, represent Israel's wandering and disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: But that wandering and disobedience brings forward the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: They have to wander for centuries in Egypt, and then 40 more years in the wilderness before they were able to come back into the land.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Rachel's tears represent.
SPEAKER_00: Herod, the butcher of Bethlehem, slaughters the newborns, slaughters the infants, forcing Jesus into exile into Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: So he's walking the same path here.
SPEAKER_00: But notice before Jacob set a pillar over her tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: It's the pillar of Rachel's tomb where he is to this day.
SPEAKER_00: Israel journeyed on and pinched his tent further down towards Eder.
SPEAKER_00: While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went in and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine.
SPEAKER_00: And Israel heard of it.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is not just some random event that takes place in Israel's history.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, it's not in here because it was a momentary lapse of self-control by Reuben.
SPEAKER_00: Like don't sleep with your dad's concubine.
SPEAKER_00: It's not one of the Ten Commandments for lots of reasons.
SPEAKER_00: But Reuben acts now, and that's because of the moment of opportunity that he saw here.
SPEAKER_00: He was Jacob's firstborn through Leah.
SPEAKER_00: And he saw that the mother of some of his brothers died, and so he saw that as an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Bilhah also had children, remember?
SPEAKER_00: Some of the 12 tribes come from her.
SPEAKER_00: Dan and Naphtali, they're children of Jacob and Bilhah.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Reuben sees this, you got to picture the power play here with 12 children.
SPEAKER_00: There's an order here.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben is the oldest.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks the birthright should be his.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even have land yet.
SPEAKER_00: But Reuben thinks the birthright should be his.
SPEAKER_00: His, in a sense, stepmother, or the mother of his, some of his half-brothers, is dead.
SPEAKER_00: His father is mourning it.
SPEAKER_00: By him sleeping with Bilhad, this is his sense of exerting his control.
SPEAKER_00: He's taking his claim on the family.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see something similar when Absalom sleeps with David's concubines.
SPEAKER_00: He does the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: When Absalom sleeps with David's concubines, he's taking a page out of Reuben's playbook.
SPEAKER_00: Your father is in distress.
SPEAKER_00: In this instance, the mother is dead.
SPEAKER_00: So take advantage of that.
SPEAKER_00: Sleep with the concubines, and that's your way of saying, I'm in charge of the family now.
SPEAKER_00: That's his play.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a coincidence that after this happens, notice it just says Israel heard of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob heard of it, but he doesn't act on it now.
SPEAKER_00: And so then to drive the point home in the middle of verse 22, you get all the 12 tribes named.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the lists of the 12 tribes.
SPEAKER_00: And notice Reuben is first.
SPEAKER_00: He was Jacob's firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in this particular listing, they're not listed in birth order, because Benjamin's last.
SPEAKER_00: We just saw him born.
SPEAKER_00: He's in verse 24 with others after that.
SPEAKER_00: They're not listed in birth order.
SPEAKER_00: Here they're listed by their mothers because Rachel had just died.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben is taking his claim on the family.
SPEAKER_00: Israel sees this.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob sees it, knows about it, but does not act about it.
SPEAKER_00: He files this away in his mind.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a long time before he acts on it.
SPEAKER_00: And when he acts on it is when he gives the blessings to the twelve tribes.
SPEAKER_00: You can flip over to Genesis 49.
SPEAKER_00: Go over a few pages.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob called his sons to him.
SPEAKER_00: This is before Israel or Jacob dies.
SPEAKER_00: Gather yourselves together.
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you what's going to happen in the days to come.
SPEAKER_00: Assemble and listen, though sons of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to your father Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben, you're my firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben's ears probably perked up.
SPEAKER_00: He's got to think this is my chance.
SPEAKER_00: Like I am the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: The blessing should be mine.
SPEAKER_00: And Israel notes that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You're my might, the firstfruits of my strength.
SPEAKER_00: You're preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
SPEAKER_00: And I do wonder if there's a little sarcasm in the preeminent in dignity.
SPEAKER_00: I'm certainly he carried himself.
SPEAKER_00: What he's communicating here is you carry yourself like the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: You act like the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, firstborns are just the best, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the idea here.
SPEAKER_00: Like the firstborns act that way.
SPEAKER_00: Not always to their blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And so Israel notes that.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you know how to walk.
SPEAKER_00: You're preeminent.
SPEAKER_00: But look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: You are also unstable as water.
SPEAKER_00: What a cool turn of phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Is anything more unstable than water?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hold this remote.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna set it in a pool of water to hold it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it can't hold anything.
SPEAKER_00: You will not have preeminence.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the word is the third time it's repeated there.
SPEAKER_00: He's preeminent in dignity, preeminent in power, but he will not preeminate, be preeminent, period.
SPEAKER_00: The reason is in the next part of the verse because you went up to your father's bed, you defiled it, you went up to my couch.
SPEAKER_00: Couch is an odd word there.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a weird expression in both Hebrew and English, but it's the idea that he slept after Rachel died.
SPEAKER_00: He slept with the concubine.
SPEAKER_00: Not even properly your father's bed, although that's noted.
SPEAKER_00: It's not his true bedroom.
SPEAKER_00: But he defiled even that.
SPEAKER_00: You can go back to 1 Chronicles chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father's couch, it says in verse 1, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that he could not be enrolled as the oldest son.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, his birthright trickled to Joseph, who's going to have the two tribes from him, but it also passes Levi, passes Simeon, for what Simeon did last week, we looked at it then, and settles on Judah.
SPEAKER_00: The kingship comes to Judah.
SPEAKER_00: So when you hear that the kingship belongs to Judah, it's not an arbitrary assignment.
SPEAKER_00: It's not as if God could have chosen any of the twelve and he just chose this one.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, God and his sovereignty predestined all of this, but it is the fact that the first, second, and third disqualified themselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the kingship belongs to Judah.
SPEAKER_00: It did not temper Reuben's preeminence, though.
SPEAKER_00: Another classic firstborn move.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks he's preeminent.
SPEAKER_00: He is rebuked by his father.
SPEAKER_00: The blessing is not his.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think that slowed him down?
SPEAKER_00: No, it did not.
SPEAKER_00: Have you met a firstborn before?
SPEAKER_00: It did not slow him down.
SPEAKER_00: He carries on as if he is the bee's knees the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_00: But again, we should know by now that God doesn't, generally speaking, choose the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Cain was the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Fat Lad of Good, that did him.
SPEAKER_00: Ishmael was the firstborn, not Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: Esau was the firstborn, not Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: All that to say being firstborn isn't what it used to be.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob judges Reuben.
SPEAKER_00: Now he doesn't erase the reality that he's the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: Notice in verse 2, there's a little dig at Reuben here again in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Though Judah became strong amongst his brothers, and a chief came from him, and the birthright belonged to Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: So the author here of 1 Chronicles is anybody who's from the tribe of Reuben that's reading this is going to be offended by this.
SPEAKER_00: You have to keep bringing up what my great-great-great-grandfather did so many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving the genealogy of Reuben, but he reminds you that Judah was the one who gets the king.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph was the one who was the dad's favorite.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, Reuben was the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: That's repeated in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben was indeed the firstborn.
SPEAKER_00: And then it starts to list his sons.
SPEAKER_00: His sons have some leadership.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: Berea, his son, whom Tilgath Pilasar, king of Assyria, carried away into exile.
SPEAKER_00: He was chief of the Reubenites.
SPEAKER_00: So notice that his birthright is being recognized.
SPEAKER_00: He even has chiefs coming from him.
SPEAKER_00: Not every tribe has those kind of notations in it.
SPEAKER_00: They had the kinsmen by their clans in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: All their chief, notice verse 7 has a chief again recorded.
SPEAKER_00: He lived, verse 9, to the east, as far as the entrance of the desert side of the Euphrates, because their livestock had multiplied in the land of Gilead.
SPEAKER_00: And in those days, Saul waged war against the Hagrites who fell into their lands, into their hands.
SPEAKER_00: They lived in their tents throughout all the region east of Gilead.
SPEAKER_00: So this is where Reuben settles.
SPEAKER_00: They're a massive tribe, and I won't take you back to Joshua to read the story of it, but when they go into the promised land, they decide not to go all the way into the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: Remember?
SPEAKER_00: They were the first tribe, and so this is another move.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the tribe is taking on that firstborn mentality.
SPEAKER_00: It's another move.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to claim their land first.
SPEAKER_00: So they're approaching, you know, you're driving and you can get to the top of the hill and you see the place you're going to is the next hill down there.
SPEAKER_00: And Reuben at this point is like, let's pull over right here.
SPEAKER_00: This is our land.
SPEAKER_00: The very first place you can see the promised land from, we're claiming it.
SPEAKER_00: And the other tribes say, Well, I mean, can't you come across the river to us and with us?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be on the other side of the river.
SPEAKER_00: All the promised land's on the other side of the river.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Abraham stood in the top of the hill, and Lot went this way.
SPEAKER_00: Abram went that way, but it's Lot's land that would be the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: That's the land where first Sodom and Gomorrah falls, and it's the other side of the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the 12 tribes will be.
SPEAKER_00: That's what was promised to Abraham, and that's where Reuben won't go.
SPEAKER_00: He's claiming his firstborn status, and he'll take the land here first.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even across the river.
SPEAKER_00: He chose the good land.
SPEAKER_00: In his mind, that was immediately secure.
SPEAKER_00: That land wasn't very, wasn't thoroughly occupied.
SPEAKER_00: The people that went across the river, they had to go fight wars.
SPEAKER_00: They had to kick the uh the Amalekites out.
SPEAKER_00: They had to go to war against the Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: But not Reuben.
SPEAKER_00: The first land, the best lands, the first security, the best security.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, what an older brother move.
SPEAKER_00: The downside of this was the distance from the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: He placed himself on the opposite side of the river away from the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he had natural privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my formula for privilege and power.
SPEAKER_00: You take natural privilege, you add to it physical power.
SPEAKER_00: This is God.
SPEAKER_00: Next son is God.
SPEAKER_00: The sons of Gad lived over against him in the land of Bashan as far as Seleika.
SPEAKER_00: Now, God, he was a warrior, and we're not, we won't, I won't make you go back to Genesis 49, but Gad was known as a warrior.
SPEAKER_00: He, the bow was strong with him.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 33 sums up Gad by saying he chose the best of the land and he executed the justice of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Gad carries on further than Reuben does.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben takes north.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the opposite side of where the Sea of Galilee is on top of the mountain over there.
SPEAKER_00: It's modern-day, really Syria down to Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Reuben settled.
SPEAKER_00: But if you keep going further, you know that valley kind of pushes you in towards the Jordan River and goes down the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_00: They cross down by Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: That's where they crossed the Jordan River, but they got to it from the north.
SPEAKER_00: And as they walk down, that's where Gad occupies.
SPEAKER_00: That land over there.
SPEAKER_00: It's farming land now.
SPEAKER_00: For the longest time, I remember when Deidre and I went to Israel for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: The other side of the Jordan River was barren.
SPEAKER_00: And now it's all farming land because Israel shared all their water technology with the Jordanian government.
SPEAKER_00: And they've, I mean, it's it's green now, it looks like outside of Bakersfield.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's this desert land, but crops growing everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it looks like now.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Gad settled.
SPEAKER_00: Gad took that.
SPEAKER_00: It's closer to Israel than where Reuben went.
SPEAKER_00: Like you're almost there.
SPEAKER_00: But Gad had a different motivation of you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Reuben settled first because they were the first, and that's what they wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00: They get off the train first because they're oldest.
SPEAKER_00: Gad settled further down, not because they were asserting privilege, but because they were warriors.
SPEAKER_00: So they wanted to be on the border.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be at the door, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Israel's gonna cross.
SPEAKER_00: Of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: Gad wants to guard the other side of the Jordan River so that nobody can mess with his brothers.
SPEAKER_00: That's Gad's thinking.
SPEAKER_00: So Gad has also chiefs in verse 12, Joel of Shaphan II, and then he starts listing some of the chiefs here according to their fathers' houses and their kinsmen.
SPEAKER_00: They were chiefs.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, they lived in Gilead and Bashan in his own towns, and all the pasture lands of Sharon to their limits.
SPEAKER_00: These are all recorded in the genealogy of Jotham, king of Judah, the days of Jeroboam, king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that Gad is associated with both the north and south.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're closer to Judah than, in fact, they're closer to Judah than many of the ten northern tribes because they went down along the river by Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: They're associated with war.
SPEAKER_00: But notice verse 18, the Reubenites, the Gadites, the half tribe of Manasseh, the valiant men who carried shield and sword and drew the bow.
SPEAKER_00: They were experts in war.
SPEAKER_00: 44,760 of them could go to war.
SPEAKER_00: So God is known as warriors.
SPEAKER_00: They got 44,000 marines guarding the front door of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They waged war, all kinds of war.
SPEAKER_00: The Haggirites, Jetur, Nafesh, Nodab in verse 19, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: They prevailed over him against the Haggites who were with them.
SPEAKER_00: God gave them into their hands.
SPEAKER_00: Because, look at verse 21 or 20, they cried out to God in the battle.
SPEAKER_00: And God granted their plea because they trusted him.
SPEAKER_00: Gad was strong and they trusted Yahweh and they had the victory.
SPEAKER_00: And notice Gad gets plunder.
SPEAKER_00: 50,000 camels.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a census of the people, this is a census of their plunder.
SPEAKER_00: 50,000 camels, 250,000 sheep, 2,000 donkeys, 100,000 men alive they captured.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with 100,000 prisoners of war?
SPEAKER_00: Jeez.
SPEAKER_00: Many fell.
SPEAKER_00: Because the war was of God.
SPEAKER_00: And they lived in their place until drumroll the exile.
SPEAKER_00: They had physical power.
SPEAKER_00: You have natural privilege.
SPEAKER_00: You have physical power.
SPEAKER_00: Third.
SPEAKER_00: This leads to covenantal faith.
SPEAKER_00: Abandoned.
SPEAKER_00: You add natural power to physical, or natural privilege to physical power.
SPEAKER_00: This is my formula.
SPEAKER_00: And you subtract covenantal faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens in verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: They lose their covenantal faith.
SPEAKER_00: The members of the half tribe, Manasseh, lived in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Joseph had two children, Manasseh and Ephraim.
SPEAKER_00: So there's no tribe of Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: It splits.
SPEAKER_00: Half of them are Manasseh.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't cross the river entirely.
SPEAKER_00: They were kind of on both sides of the river there.
SPEAKER_00: They were very numerous.
SPEAKER_00: It was the biggest tribe because there was a sense in which Joseph was the most favored.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that was the prime minister in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: So the tribe that comes from him is massive.
SPEAKER_00: These were the heads of their fathers' houses, and they're listed there.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25, here's the key part.
SPEAKER_00: They broke faith with the God of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: They hoard after the gods of the people of the land whom God had destroyed before them.
SPEAKER_00: They quit worshiping Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Now all three of these tribes, as I mentioned, were on the other side of the Jordan from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They had created distance between them and the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: All three of them had this swagger to them, the kids did anyway, and it's lived out with the tribe, that they thought they were untouchable.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben thought they would not be judged by God because they were first.
SPEAKER_00: Gad thought they wouldn't be judged by God because they won all the battles.
SPEAKER_00: Manasseh thought they wouldn't be judged by God because they descended from Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody could mess with them.
SPEAKER_00: But they broke faith with God.
SPEAKER_00: They stopped worshiping Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: What happens when you combine all these three together?
SPEAKER_00: It equals exile.
SPEAKER_00: If you take natural privilege and you add to it physical power, but you subtract covenantal faith, it leads to exile.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Poul, king of Assyria, the spirit of Tilgeth Pilziar, king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: He took them into exile.
SPEAKER_00: Namely the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben thought they would be first in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they were first to exile.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't always matter who's first.
SPEAKER_00: It depends on what you're lining up for, I guess, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Reuben was the first to take their land.
SPEAKER_00: They were the first to abandon God, and they were the first to go into exile.
SPEAKER_00: Gad trusted their strength rather than the covenant, begin worshiping other gods, and they went into exile.
SPEAKER_00: Manasseh trusted their legacy, not their faithfulness with God, and they went into exile.
SPEAKER_00: It's been, there's not a lot of Armenians out here in DC, but I did meet one a couple weeks ago who it's something so common in LA, but it's been so long out here.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked him if he was a believer, and he gave the classic Armenian line that he's a believer because he's from Armenia.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's the world's first Christian nation.
SPEAKER_00: The world's first Christian nation.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and back before the Council of Nicaea, Armenia became a Christian nation.
SPEAKER_00: So how dare you ask if an Armenian today is following the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know he's from the first Christian nation?
SPEAKER_00: That's Manasseh.
SPEAKER_00: You have people that trust their physical privilege, that trust their physical strength, that trust their natural privilege that God had put them in a family.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the old adage.
SPEAKER_00: Are you a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Well, don't you know who my parents are?
SPEAKER_00: My dad was a deacon of this church before you were born.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: Also, not the answer to the question that was asked.
SPEAKER_00: You know, look at all that I've done for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, also not the answer to the question that was asked.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation is a free gift from God.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, your confidence can come.
SPEAKER_00: You gain assurance from things that you do, but your confidence can never be rooted in things that you do.
SPEAKER_00: Your life provides fruit of salvation, which can be evidence of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: That evidence can never be the grounds of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened to God, is they forgot that.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened to Manasseh that they forgot that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened to Reuben, that they didn't care about that.
SPEAKER_00: They trusted in themselves, ultimately.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them had more to trust in than others.
SPEAKER_00: You have respect for God.
SPEAKER_00: God has only spoken about positively in the Bible right up until the verse that it says they started worshiping other gods.
SPEAKER_00: It was going so well until that point.
SPEAKER_00: They were strong and brave and they died for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But they trusted their strength rather than the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Geography cannot keep you safe.
SPEAKER_00: Strength cannot save you.
SPEAKER_00: Only covenant faith can save someone.
SPEAKER_00: That is true of the 12 tribes we see.
SPEAKER_00: And it is true of us today.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot be a Christian because you've always been a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot be a Christian because you were the first in your family to go to church.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot be a Christian because you are strong and you do all these things for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't be a Christian because of who your dad was or who your family is.
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege it is to be born into a Christian family, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up going to church at Christmas and Easter.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up exposed.
SPEAKER_00: The first short-term mission trip I went on, I heard the song Father Abraham Had Many Sons and thought it was so cool.
SPEAKER_00: And all of my friends in college thought it was insane that I liked that song.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what a privilege it is to be born into a Christian family and grow up with it.
SPEAKER_00: But if you trust that you were born into a Christian family, you forfeit your covenantal relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege it is to be strong and bold and to have courage, to do things with the Lord that require courage.
SPEAKER_00: But if you trust the things you do for the Lord as the grounds of your salvation, you forfeit your relationship with the Lord because it comes about you then.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is the bottom line with election, that God chooses whom to save, so that man does not trust in himself.
SPEAKER_00: It does not depend, what does Paul say to the Romans?
SPEAKER_00: It does not depend on man who wills or man who runs, but on God who chooses whom to save.
SPEAKER_00: Power protects nobody who forsakes the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Reuben lost what he was given.
SPEAKER_00: Gad fought for what he was given at least, but he lost it and he forgot the God who gave it.
SPEAKER_00: Only covenant faith can save you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that the kingdom of God on earth advances not through Reuben or Gad or Manasseh, but through your covenant.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't advance through military power or dominance, but through the faithful son of David, born to the line of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Your plan was to save the world, not through military strength.
SPEAKER_00: Your plan was to save the world, not through firstborns.
SPEAKER_00: Your plan was to save the world not through power or privilege, but through a servant who would lay his life down on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, that is our model.
SPEAKER_00: A model of covenant faithfulness, that Christ walked in covenant obedience all of his days, trusting the God who sent him.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone could have trusted his position, it would have been Jesus, of course.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for that model.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.