Walking in God’s Blessing

I am really proud of you, that you guys have finished all the way through this Bible study. This is our last week in the Wilderness Way. You know, some women's Bible studies settle on the pink passages, Proverbs 31 and Titus 2. I don't think anybody would put the book of Numbers into the pink passages, would they? It's been a lot of history and it's been a lot of Bible truths, but it's been a lot of personal application for both male and female, but especially too, like we've gleaned a lot that settle into a woman's life, so I'm really happy that we've been able to do this. This week is titled Walking in God's Blessing, and you know that our original goal was to follow the Wilderness Way from Mount Sinai to the banks of the Jordan River, and that's exactly what we've done. The final events for this week would be described this way, and this is what we're going to go over. The sorcerer Balaam blessing Israel, even though he was hired to curse. The Midianite women, the Moabite women, enticing Israel into worshiping Baal, even though they already belonged to God. Moses accusing Reuben and Gad, even though it was sort of their fault for poor communication. And then finally, we have the transfer of the leadership from Moses to Joshua. Each one of those are one message, and yet I am going to squeeze them all. So if I'm talking really fast, it's because I'm trying to squeeze a lot of information in this final week. So let's begin with Balaam. You know, we paused our study last week as Israel was camped right at Moab's doorstep, and you'll remember that Moab was, as a country, frightened as they looked out over this horde that was Israel. We remember that Moab was out of practice in talking to God, and so they had no idea that they were completely safe, and so they thought they needed to do something. King Balak reached out to a sorcerer to pronounce curses on this horde that was before him, because that's what he did. And the sorcerer's name was Balaam, which sets us up for a little bit of a tongue twister for evermore. Balak and Balaam. Which one was which, right? Fortunately, we have that little phrase about Balaam's donkey, and so that kind of helps us remember, oh yeah, Balaam was the one that was sorcerer, and Balak was the king. But anyway, he was undoubtedly promised a large amount of money to do this. It's like you hire a wedding photographer. Every additional location that you add, the price goes up, and you studied. There was three locations here, and each one had an altar and burnt sacrifices and all of that, and so certainly there was a lot that was promised to him. And yet, only the words, the only words that came out of Balaam's mouth were words of blessing. He could not curse them. And so I just wrote some of the phrases in all three of the oracles of Balaam. I just kind of wrote some of the phrases in different order, and I just want to read them to you to recap some of the things that he said. Like how can I curse whom God has not cursed? He said, God is not a man that he should change his mind. What he said, he will do. Probably talking about bringing this people, completing what he began with them. Balaam said, the Lord their God is with them. How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your encampments, O Israel. Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his. I admire them so much, I would like to finish like they do. And then, blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you, which sounds shockingly like what God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you. So those are the things that came out of his mouth. And of course, Balak was frustrated every time, and he said things like, what have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and you have only spoken blessings. And the third time, he was so mad, it says he clapped his hands. Like what have you done? And if any of you have ever been a mother in your life, at least one time, you have probably succumbed to that whole hand clapping thing, right? But he was real frustrated. I called you to curse my enemies, and you blessed them. And Balaam kept responding, saying, I can only speak what the Lord puts in my mouth. And so that was the situation until finally, in Numbers 24, verse 15, as part of this grand finale that I think Balaam just kind of did on his own, he describes himself, and he speaks a prophecy. I love this passage. It goes like this. He says,

And so how ironic in this whole story that it is a pagan sorcerer, Balaam, who sees clearly the coming Messiah. He says, I see him. He's going to come. He's not near. This is going to be a while, but I see this. I love it. And it shows me that God loves to sprinkle a little bit of situational irony throughout his story of redemption, that he put that vision into a pagan who spoke it out, and we have it recorded here. It reminds us that whatever people intend for harm, God can turn around and use for blessing because he is a blessing God. Well, Balaam couldn't curse Israel, but he could tempt them. And that is exactly what he did, and that is our next story. But I just want to say this too. Do you girls know Satan cannot curse you? He has no power to curse you. You belong to God, but he can tempt you, and that is what his mission is, is to tempt us. All right. So Balaam tempted Israel to turn away from their exclusive covenant relationship with Yahweh to worship other gods who were no gods. And we know that it was Balaam who did this because as we went to chapter 31, verse 16, it tells us it was on Balaam's advice that the people of Israel were caused to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor. And even though it was Balaam's idea, Israel seemed to offer a little resistance. And so we'll read that next. It's Numbers 25, verse 1, and here's how it goes.

All right, so that's basically the story there. Why was it so alluring for Israel to be enticed to idols anyway? Idols in general and Baal specifically. What was the draw? And I kind of rolled this over and wondered about it this week. What was the draw? And I don't know for sure that I have an answer, but I began to think about how tangible that experience was. It appealed to man's desire for the natural over the spiritual. And I began to think about how much we are drawn to the natural over the spiritual. This represented for them an opportunity to, first of all, be like the other nations, but also to do something, to accomplish something, to offer themselves in exchange for favors. And really, it's the same motive that was at the base of Mount Sinai. When they thought Moses had disappeared and they went to Aaron, they said, make gods for us that will lead us back to Egypt. There's something that we desire, what we can look at, what we can see, what we can accomplish, that sort of thing. And of course, when people make up gods, there's always a good dose of sexual immorality that goes with it. And I'm sure there's a certain appeal that goes with that. But in a nutshell, people crave the... over the spiritual. And I think it's why Eastern religions are popular and even rise in popularity, because with all other religions, and particularly those, it's what we do. It is how we live or what we do that appeals to someone, either the universe or the light or the Sun or karma or whatever, we get back. And Christianity is the only religion where it's completely based on what Jesus did, not what we do. What Jesus did, we look at that and we believe by faith that by accepting it and believing it, we are made right, righteous in the sight of God. Well, there's two things about this incident that I want to talk about. First thing is, I want you to notice that it was a descendant of Aaron that stopped the plague. Do you see a pattern going here? So this was, again, a priestly line that stood in the gap and that stopped the plague. And the Lord even used the word, made atonement for Israel. It is in verse 13, it said, Phinehas made atonement for the people of Israel. And so the Lord blessed him for that. It shall be to him and to his descendants after him, the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God. And that is, of course, the opposite of what the people were. The people were quite willing to commit spiritual adultery against their God, but Phinehas was jealous for that relationship. But secondly, I want us to think about these two stories now. First, Balaam and then Phinehas. And you might be perplexed when you stand back and look at the big picture and you say, okay, so we have this pagan sorcerer who can't even say a bad thing. God's just blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing. The next thing we have is a plague. God kills 24,000 people because they have gone off to bail worship. Does that seem a little odd or a little odd of character? Does it seem like two different gods in a way? They seem quite different, but there is no contradiction in God's character in that. I think it's exactly how he expressed himself to Moses back in Exodus chapter 34, when he said, the Lord God, a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, keeping steadfast love to thousands, but who will by no means clear the guilty. God expressed himself that way. It shouldn't be a surprise that this would happen. God is long-suffering, wants to bless people in the pursuit of their purpose for which they are called, but decisive and limited discipline when they rebel against that. And so Israel was a people that had a great awareness of God's presence. They had the tabernacle in their midst. They had received the daily manna for 40 years that represented to them God's work in the past, God's faithfulness to them in the past. They had the daily sacrifices in the tabernacle that represented to them the continuing work that was to draw their eye forward of what was going to happen in the future. They had been given a lot of revelation of who God was, and yet in this particular situation they made a choice to rebel against that. And so it makes sense to see decisive discipline on the part of the Lord in order to draw them back, in order to say, no, this won't go well with you. So after that event, Moses was called on by the Lord in verse 17 to harass the Midianites and strike them down, for they have harassed you with their wiles with which they beguiled you in the matter of Peor. And I sort of suspect, like last week when we talked about the boundaries of God's mercy, I sort of suspect the Midianites hit it right there, that God now says, okay, now you go, now you harass them because of what they had done to you. And then after these events we have the second census in the book of Numbers. Remember I said there's two bookends for Numbers. There's an original census, and then we take a census at the end of now who's left. Now we count how many people there are. And I think this sort of signals the beginning of the end of the wilderness way, in a good sense of the word, because we're coming right to the end, and now it is these people that are counted that are going to move forward into the promised land. But we have this really interesting narrative that I want to spend a little bit of time on this morning. It's in chapter 32, and the reason I want to spend time on it isn't because of its importance necessarily in the story, but its relevance of application, I think, to our lives. And so what we find is these two tribes, Reuben and Gad, they kind of look around here on the plains of Moab and they say, you know what, this is a good land for livestock, and we have livestock. Match, match. This is a good fit for us. And in verse 5, they say, well I'm going to finish verse 1, they had a very great number of livestock, and they saw the land of Jazir and the land of Gilead was a great place for livestock. And in verse 5, they asked Moses, if we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan. Now when they said those seven words, do not take us across the Jordan, what they meant was, when we distribute all the land and we have conquered our enemies, we would like this land. This would be good. But that is not what they said, did they? That's not how it's recorded to us. And so I want to spend some time in this section talking about how we can glean from this the benefits of clear communication, because this was a train wreck, okay? We need, we need to learn to express ourselves with clear communication with one another, and we need to learn to withhold judgment with one another, and think the best of someone while we gather the information. And this helps us to fulfill our calling in the body of Christ to love one another. So clear communication, withholding judgment. Let's talk about the first one. Reuben and Gad could have done a much better job of explaining their request. They could have taken into consideration their audience. Who were they talking to? They were talking to Moses, and whose whole life had been given in the pursuit of bringing the people into the land across the Jordan. They could have explained that they had every expectation to fulfill their responsibilities first, and then come back. They could have acknowledged that this was a departure from the whole plan, but does it have any merit, and could you go talk to the Lord about this for us? They could have communicated much more clearly. Sometimes when we're talking to people, and we need to make a change, or we need to ask a favor, or we need to just do something, we can learn from this that we should stop and try our best to communicate as clearly as possible. Who is our audience, and how is it going to hit them? How are they going to hear what it is that we're saying? What is their vantage point? Have I explained all of my responsibilities and promises in this, and have I acknowledged that this is different than what we said we were going to do? This is a departure from the plan. Okay, we'll come back to that, but I want to talk about now Moses's side, and also our responsibility to resist accusation. This is what Moses did not do. He did not resist accusation. In verse 6, Moses said to the people of Gad and Reuben, well, shall your brothers go to war while you just sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them? You know what, your fathers did this. When I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the Lord had given them, and then he went on and on to say, and that didn't go well, and that's why we're here 40 years later. And he ends it in verse 14 by saying, behold, you have risen in your father's place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel. Wow, he blasted them, and I really don't blame him because he is quite fatigued at this point. He has worn the burden on his shoulders of the 40 years, and this is a new generation. We have passed the second census. They have been told of the history of the last 40 years, but they hardly lived through it, and maybe they didn't even live through it. They'd merely been told, so it doesn't burn on them. It doesn't weigh on them like it does on Moses. So he jumped to rash conclusions about their motives in this request. Now, he could have taken into consideration their age, their experience, which basically was zero, and He could have thought to himself, hmm, these youngins just don't know how this is coming across to me. He could have given thought to their request and asked a few more questions before he accused him of being a brood of sinful men. And he could have acknowledged and began the discussion of, well, this wasn't what the plan was, but let me go talk to the Lord and see what he says about it. So that's what Moses could have done on his part. And that is a good example for us, too, when someone is hitting us with some information that we didn't anticipate, rather than immediately accusing them in our mind of what their motives are, to kind of slow down and think through some of these things. I am an accuser. I see that I've done that often with people. I was talking to Paul about this and we were driving the other day. We were in the car and one of us, I won't say which one, mentioned how the person in front of us just couldn't seem to find their blinker switch, you know? And then since we had been talking about this, the other one of us, I won't say which one, said, well, maybe it's broken. Maybe you're accusing them before you have all the information. But do you see how easy it is? We all do it. I can see you're nodding. We accuse people before we have gathered the information. And so then we had a little bit of fun and we went on to talk about how often we do this. And, you know, somebody's driving, Paul, he was saying, you know, somebody driving so slow. And I said, well, maybe they just left a funeral, you know? And all these things, like we don't know. We don't know what's going on. And so this helps us love one another in the body of Christ. Slow down, gather the information. So in our text, they finally communicate well. And Reuben and Gad, they assure Moses, no, no, no, no, no. We intend to go fight and then we'll come back. And Moses, you know, is humbled. And he says, well, you better, you know. But he knows he won't be around to enforce this. And so he grabs Joshua and he grabs Eleazar. In verse 29, he says, if the people of Gad and the people of Reuben will pass with you over the Jordan, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession. However, if they will not pass over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan. So it's a done deal. Everybody knows what to expect. Now, in this passage, the way I see it, no one ever does inquire of the Lord. No one ever does ask, is this good? Do you want us to do this? I have my own suspicions based on when we get to the New Testament and how these Jews were living at the time that maybe it wasn't the best idea. I don't know. I would like to think that everyone who lives in God's kingdom, that's you and me, everyone who is a child of God, lives out God's perfect purpose for their life. And yet I have my suspicions that many of us live out God's permissive purpose for our life. But that's a different Bible study for someone much smarter than me. So I'll leave it right there. But I wonder if these tribes lived out God's permissive purpose and not his perfect purpose for their life. Our series has been called Wilderness Way. This week, it's Walking in God's Blessing. And I just wanna begin to tie this up. Blessing was God's plan for Israel. And you guys, blessing is God's plan for us. He is a blessing God, and he desires to bless us. He blesses us in a couple of ways. I wanna settle on two ways this morning. He blesses us by giving, and he blesses us by warning. Do you often think of God's warnings as blessings? They are. Think about this whole journey. He told them that he wanted to give them the land. He sent them on the way to possess the land. I am giving you the land. And it was laced with warnings about what would happen on the way, that they needed to be purposeful, and they needed to be attentive once they got to the land. Giving and warnings. Let's start with the hard one. Let's start with warnings. I bookended this study with 1 Corinthians 10. I printed it in your study guide on chapter seven. We opened up with it. We've referred to it almost every week. The apostle Paul loves alliterations just as much as I do because he gave a Wilderness Way warning in that passage. And so what I wanna do, I want us to remember that Balaam could not curse Israel. He could only tempt Israel. And in this Wilderness Way warning that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 10, we see that it ends with a exhortation for us to stand against temptation. So with everything that you've studied in mind, what I wanna do is just read through this now and let it roll over you, knowing that we're getting to this warning for temptations. 1 Corinthians 10, chapter six. Now, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, these things happen to them as an example, but they are written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Here comes the summary. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands takes heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. We are warned. God is blessing us by warning us that temptations will come, but he's also blessing us by saying he will give a way of escape in those temptations. And we studied all of the problems in the wilderness, but I just wanna talk about this one last one with the Baal worship. Had Israel been warned? Yes. Did they have a way of escape? Yes, they did. They could have just said, no, this is out of agreement for people who belong to Yahweh. This would be out of agreement for us to engage in this, to yoke ourselves with this God. And don't we also already belong to another God? And so the temptations that come our way that lean to the natural, that gravitate toward the things that we want, things that are tangible, things that we want to do. We have these same temptations, but we have the warnings and the promise of God. He wants to bless us by saying, but I will provide a way out. I will always provide a way out of those temptations that you face. So the wilderness way is about warnings, but it's also about God giving. It's about blessing. Every step of the way, God gave so many blessings to them. They were physical blessings to them, which represented spiritual blessings to us. So let's just go through and review them really, really quickly. It started before they even left Egypt with the Passover lamb that God gave to them, which was a physical representation to them as they sheltered under the blood of a spiritual blessing to us, that the blood of Christ is also what protects us from the destroyer. And so they were given that. They were given manna, which was a symbol of Jesus himself. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And they were given this so that they had a physical representation of to us what is a spiritual reality that we also need to feast on the bread of life daily. We have the words made true and we can have that blessing from the Lord. They were given the living water that came out of the rock to quench their thirst. It was a physical thing. And it represents to us that image of Jesus, the rock which flows, the living water flows out of it. I just read John chapter four this morning about the woman of Samaria. And Jesus said, if you knew who I was, you would ask me for living water. And of course, this being on my mind, I'm like, yeah, that was supposed to be all it was. Speak to the rock and he'll give you the living water. And that's what Jesus said to that Samaritan woman. If you knew who I was, you would just ask me and I would give it to you. They were given Aaron, who was a symbol of Jesus. He was a type of Jesus as he interceded and took the blood of the sacrifice and entered into the Holy of Holies and made atonement for himself and for the people. They were given that that they could see. They were blessed with that, which is also a representation to us of the work that Jesus Christ has done with his own blood. that he goes in to the Holy of Holies. And they were given Moses, who was a symbol of Jesus. He was the one who delivered and led the people all the way to this point. And it is sad for us to think that he doesn't get to go on with them. It made me sad anyway. But it is right that he stops right there that he stops right there. Because Moses represents the law. Moses represents that which is true, that which is beautiful, that which tells us about the character of God. But the law in itself can never bring anyone into the place of rest. The law in itself can never bring us to where we find victory and rest. And so there had to be another type of Jesus Christ. And we read that the leadership was transferred to Joshua from Moses. And Joshua was the one who just happens to have the name, right? Yeshua, which is the same name as Jesus in Greek, the Hebrew, they share the same name. And he is the one that was given to them finally to bring them into that land of victory and rest. And he represents for us, God blessing us with Jesus, who is the only one who can bring us into, not only into God's presence, but into a place of victory and rest. And I can hardly wait until next winter when we get to our next phase of God's unfolding story of redemption. And we pick up the book of Joshua and we will actually watch them, watch Joshua, our Jesus, Joshua, lead them into the land flowing with milk and honey. It'll be a great study. And I've really enjoyed this study with all of you. Father, we thank you for the richness of your word. Oh, Lord God, so many things that we can see and understand that you put into place that show us different dimensions of not only your care for your people, your blessing for your people, but Lord, the scope of your whole plan of redemption. And Lord, I pray that you would help us to just walk in that. Lord, the one thing that is on my heart as we finish this story is you truly have blessed us by giving us your son and you have blessed us by giving us warnings. Lord, we don't even want to go there, but it is a reality. Lord, we have temptations in our life, temptations to turn away from you and to engage in things that just appeal to our flesh. And so Lord, I ask for all of us this morning that you would highlight those ways that you have made a way of escape for those temptations that face us. We haven't faced our last temptation. We're gonna continue to face them as we go on our course. So Lord, we ask you that you would make us smart about this, Lord, that you would make us turn our hearts just like Phineas did and be jealous for you, jealous for your ways, Lord, to live in response to your gracious redemption. Thank you and pray in Jesus' name, amen.