Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 18, 2023 | Numbers - Can We Stay Here?

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June 18, 2023 | Numbers - Can We Stay Here? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So uh tail as old as time, right?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've been a part of a group project where not everybody pulled their weight, right?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the person who didn't pull their weight comes along at the very end when it's time for the boss to look at it or the teacher to look at it, and they want all the credit, right?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I got so when I was at K State, my major was family studies, and uh that was like all we did was group projects.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I got so tired of that happening that one time I went up and asked the teacher if I could just do an entire group project by myself.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a really dumb idea, but did I have anybody in my group who slacked off?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I did not.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I got what I wanted.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a part of our brain that just kind of short circuits uh when we are all supposed to be moving towards kind of this common goal together, and we just see people sort of flagging off to the sides and not carrying their weight is really one way to put it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a story in the Bible that relates very much to that in Numbers chapter 32.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we only have two weeks, including today, left, two lessons in the book of Numbers.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is our second to last message, and you're gonna find that even though the circumstances in Numbers 32 are going to be completely foreign to you, the situation uh that we find ourselves in, or the nation of Israel found themselves in, rather, is one that directly relates to something that we're going through today.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if you turn to Numbers 32, you are going to get all of those feelings about your group project frustrations are going to come out here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of set you up for where we're at, right?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in chapter 31, last week, uh Israel defeated the forces of Midian.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about what it means to kind of have this holy war and how it's not just a battle against flesh and blood, but that uh God is working out this much greater thing against the forces of evil.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we should be expecting, because again, if you might remember, uh, we're in the plains of Moab, which is right on the east side of the Jordan River.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Jordan River runs north to south, and over on the east side, Israel's waiting to go in um to the west side, and they are going to be uh taking on the conquest, really, of the promised land.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna attack the nation the land of Canaan.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: But right now, they're in these plains.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And while they're there, awaiting the instruction to cross the Jordan River and to begin really the full-on military battle, the war that God has called them to, they find themselves in a beautiful piece of land called Gilead.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what you need to know as we begin in chapter 32.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now the people of Reuben and the people of Gad, those are two tribes of Israel, had a very great number of livestock, and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for livestock.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the people of Gad and the people of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eliezer the priest, and to the chiefs of the congregation, the land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel is a land for livestock, and your servants we have livestock.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do not take us across the Jordan.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we have uh two tribes listed here, Reuben and Gad, and then later on we find out that there's a half tribe, uh there's half of the tribe of Manasseh that's also with them.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like two and a half tribes.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they go to Moses and they say, Um, it's pretty great here, and we've been wandering for 40 years in a desert filled with snakes, and there is no desert, and there are no snakes here in Gilead.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we'd like to just hang out right here.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We've got livestock, we've got a lot of it because of the battles that we've waged up until this point, and so we'd like to hang out here.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, their claim there uh at face value makes sense, right?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, God is taking them to the promised land, and they found land that they really love and they want to stay in it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the difficulty, though, is we're about to find out, is that they, what they are really doing is they're asking to opt out of God's critical mission for the entire nation of Israel, which was to cross the Jordan and take over the promised land, right?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we have been leading towards this entire time.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is the whole nation is gonna go up.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you might remember in chapter 31, right, uh each one of the 12 tribes gives a thousand people into the war, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody is united in what they're supposed to be doing here.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh say, Um, can we just like hang back?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can we just foam finger, like, you, yeah, go on, like cheer you, because we're for you and what you're doing, but let's stay in Gilead.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they're asking is what ultimately ends up happening, is you'll see that they are going to be divided.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: This red line here is the Jordan River.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It goes from the Sea of Galilee down, right?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they are going to stay on the east side.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The promised land is this over here.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: What is not the promised land is this section right here.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so behind their request uh to stay on the east side of the Jordan is not only a request that goes against God's desire for them, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: He has an inheritance for them within the promised land, but also that they are going to ask that they not be involved in the war that Israel is supposed to be going forward with.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let's see what Moses has to say to this request.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, Shall your brothers go to war?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Will you sit here?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your fathers did this when I sent them from Kadesh Barneah to see the land.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: For when they went up to the valley of Eshkel and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the Lord had given them.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So Kadesh Barneah is like shorthand for Numbers 13 and 14, when the spies are sent, right, and the twelve come back, and ten of them have a bad report, and they don't by faith go into the promised land when they were supposed to, and so God makes them wander for 40 years, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses is equating what these tribes want to do with the most significant rebellion against God while they were in the desert.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: That really, frankly, caused them to wander in the desert.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So high stakes.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on in verse 13, and he says, All these things will uh brought the Lord's anger, and it 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 gone.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And 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.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you can say that Moses does not like their plan, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying here, like why is he so, and why does he have such an intense response?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, again, we have to think back to the rejection from the promised land, originally in Numbers 13 and 14.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what that came down to was a people who did not have faith, that they could trust in the plans of God, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: They said, remember, you might recall there was a period in our series in Numbers when we were just talking about all the accusations they were leveling against him.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, You're gonna kill us, you're gonna kill our children, you're gonna do all these terrible things, you hate us, you want us to die of thirst and you know starvation.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the generation of people that got sent out of the promised land.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to go into it, and God said no.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying to Reuben and Gadim and Nash, he's like, You're doing the exact same thing.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing the exact same thing, which is looking into the promised land and saying, we don't want to go there.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that, well, there are four problems really with their request.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: One is that it's gonna undermine Israel's unity, okay?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So everything they do is supposed to be as a group.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thousand uh troops from each tribe are going into war.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, everything is what Israel is doing.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And all twelve tribes are part of that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're going to undermine this by leaving a significant portion of God's nation on the outside of the promised land.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big deal.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Second, they're going to fracture their military, okay?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this goes back to the census, the second census in Numbers 26, but they're leaving between a fifth, 20%, and 25% of Israel's military on the outside, okay?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Before they're going to war.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Third, they're going to discourage the other tribes.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, how I mean, what's the big deal about discouraging them?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, kind of the whole book of Numbers has been building up to, we're going into the promised land.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be war.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're the other, you know, what would that be, nine and a half tribes, and you see two and a half who are just like drinking my ties at the top of the hills of Gilead while you go on across the Jordan into war, like that's not the most encouraged, that's not the send-off you're looking for.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be united in this effort to go forward.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so when our brothers who are supposed to be going to war are setting on the sidelines, like, oh, well, now it doesn't feel like we're really going forward with all of our strength.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But fourth and finally, and this is the most significant, is they're angering God with their rebellion.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They, what they are doing, make no mistake, is they are telling God, we have made a new plan, and that plan we want to now be your plan.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: We want our plan to be God's new plan for the world.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not really how God works.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: God has a plan, and in fact, he has a critical mission for Israel to be going on.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: One that is going to bring forth later on down the world down the road the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is wrapped up in God saying, We're going to go into the promised land.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention all of the things that he was being faithful to keep his word on that he had promised to Father Abraham.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, you take all of these things, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses gives them this response.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You shouldn't do this.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is terrible.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is really bad.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're in danger, your action is in uh endangering the entire nation of being sent out of the promised land once again.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so they come back with a compromise.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: They came near to him and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance, for we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan to the east.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a couple of significant things here to look at really quick.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: One is what they're doing, right, is most definitely a compromise.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they're trying to make a deal, right, with Moses, who is really speaking on behalf of God.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Hey, God, um, how about you get our military, and then we get to keep all the land that we would really like?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if we do that, it seems like it's solving enough of the problems that you brought up that we can, we should be okay.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what's sad though is we already see that their heart, and this is going to be a significant problem, really, even though they're making this compromise to send their army and to technically do what they're supposed to be doing, kind of, their heart is divided.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is literally split over the waters of the Jordan, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because what they say here is they're like, okay, uh, all of this beautiful land uh in Gilead, okay, all these cities, all of these places that are great for our livestock, uh, we're gonna leave our women and children there, okay?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, um uh there are a lot of dangerous nations around here, um, around all this land, and so uh we're going to leave them in these fortified cities.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we'll go with you.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go with you into the land.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: God's critical mission, we'll carry it out.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: But they begin to speak about the land east of the Jordan as their inheritance, and that is not the way that God speaks about it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: God says, I had a plan for you to go into the promised land, and they say, Yeah, but we like what we see right now.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so instead of by faith going into uh by faith expecting that the promise of God that they would be inheriting was better, instead they looked at what they had immediately before them and said, In this case, a burden of hand is worth two in the bush, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'd take what we would have right now.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they bring this compromise and Moses consents.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he makes a little covenant with them.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, If you'll do this, if you will take up arms to go before the Lord for the war, and every armed man of you will pass over the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven out his enemies from before him, and the land is subdued before the Lord, then after that you shall return and be free of obligation to the Lord and to Israel, and this land shall be your possession before the Lord.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure that your sin will find you out.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to notice here what Moses is doing, and the way that he's speaking about this, he is lifting up the situation beyond the interactions of brothers and sisters in Israel.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is saying along the way, hey, this plan is before the Lord, this war.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And every armed man of you, this is going to be the condition of this covenant, every armed man will go forward before the Lord, until he's accomplished God's critical mission, um, that it's subdued before the Lord.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, you shall return to the land east of the Jordan, um, and to this land shall be your possession before the Lord.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's saying, really, your request, your compromise, your decision to be split in half and have your priority, really focus on your priorities over and above the unity and the um the uh military campaign here of Israel.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the decision that you're making is going up to the throne room of God here.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, this is not just a mediation, okay, of how and who gets what land and what parcel.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says this is going up to the plans of God.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is so significant.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what he also is reminding them of is he's like, remember, this war, this is not about you.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: This war is about driving out God's enemies.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was last week in chapter 31.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: This war is about more than just you, but you have made it really about you.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go forward, you want to stay behind.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I think a good question right now would be what's the big deal?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's the big deal?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if this is like your first Sunday and you haven't been going with us through the book of Numbers, then a lot of this probably doesn't make all that much sense.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what you should be picking up on at this point is the fact that uh these two and a half tribes, they have taken God's plan and rejected it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: They have made a new plan and asked God to make that his plan.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, their hearts have been divided, as I've already said, and their priorities have been split, and they are now technically doing the bare minimum of what they have been asked to do, but meanwhile, they are trying to keep the here and now, the Gilead, the beautiful, the thing that they think is best for them.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be a problem.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, back to the story.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Moses finishes with one last phrase, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and be sure that your sin will find you out.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not familiar with the Bible, you might have even heard that phrase.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty popular, your sin will find you out.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what Moses is saying is that um, let no one be mistaken, Reuben, Gad, half of Manasseh, because this is before the Lord, do not think that you can sort of skirt this compromise, right?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: That you can just get by on a loophole.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No, if you fail to carry this out, he's like, it might not be right away, it might not be the next year, but eventually your rebellion is going to catch up with you.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's true for us today as well.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point, we leave Numbers 32 and we follow the story and we pick up on it when they are crossing the Jordan.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of Joshua in chapter 4, our question here, right, is Is Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh going to be faithful to the promise that they have made to God that they would send all their men?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh passed over, armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: About 40,000 ready for war passed over before the Lord for battle to the plains of Jericho.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um, the book of Joshua is where we cover most of the conquest of the promised land.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in Joshua 4, they're crossing the Jordan.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Huge event in terms of the history of Israel.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is the uh sort of border that they have been waiting to go over into the promised land.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is the thing that God has been holding them back from, and now they are crossing.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And who crosses the Jordan first?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: The two and a half tribes that didn't want to cross it at all, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh, they go over first.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting though, they are the only tribes in this longer section in Joshua 4 where we're told how many of them went over.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that begs the question, why?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why is God telling us how many of them actually went over and not any of the other tribes?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, remember, Moses said, every single one of your men is supposed to go over for war.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you might remember that Reuben and Gadimanasseh said, We are going to take the land that has, you know, been war-torn and ravaged by raiding nomadic groups for history, because we're not the only people that recognize that this is nice land.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to leave our women and children there, and so they need to be protected.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go to the census in Numbers 26, 40,000 means that they left 70,000 behind east of the Jordan.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: 40,000 means they left 70,000 behind east of the Jordan.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did they give all of their military men to God's purposes?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: They gave basically the minimum number that was required so that people wouldn't question whether they were sending anybody at all.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: 40,000 go over, 70,000 stay behind to carry it to refrain from carrying out God's critical mission.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing about Gad and Reuben and Manasseh.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to them after this point?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, Joshua 22, they finished the conquest.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those 40,000 who went over into the promised land did a really good job.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Joshua, the leader, right, the one who took over from Moses, at the beginning of chapter 22, he says, Go back to your land east of the Jordan, the inheritance that you've asked for.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and be blessed, because you have done what you said you would do.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see them cross over east of the Jordan into their inheritance.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: But as they're doing it, those who are still in Israel, the other nine and a half tribes, they say, Hey, um, just so you know, uh, if you haven't figured it out already, you're leaving the promised land.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're choosing to go outside of God's promise.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you would still like to go back and take possession amongst your brothers and sisters in Israel and not go to the east side of the Jordan, you can still do it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the leaders of the tribes, they say, No, we're gonna go back to Gilead.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, what happens to them while they're in Gilead?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they have a really rough time, to be honest with you.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: They picked a land that was beautiful, and they were not the only ones who noticed that it was beautiful.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And for the rest of the Old Testament, Reuben and Gad and Manasseh are attacked constantly, all the time.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: The thing they sought to avoid going to war is the thing that they ended up bringing to their doorstep, the whole bit.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we find um there's this huge stone.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That hangs out with the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Moabite Stone.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it was found about 550 years after the events of Numbers 32.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you might recall that the Moabites do not like Israel.
• 22:15
  unknown: Okay?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Mesha steel because Mesha was the king who wrote it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Written on line three, it says, Amri was the king of Israel, 1 Kings 16, and he oppressed Moab for many days, for Kemosh was angry with his land.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kemosh would be a false god that pops up throughout the Old Testament, and it's who the Moabites worshipped, one of their many gods.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And his son Ahab succeeded him, and he said, He too, I will oppress Moab.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: In my days he did so, but I looked down on him and on his house, and Israel has gone to ruin.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it has gone to ruin forever.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is he talking about?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the land that Reuben and Gad and half of Manasseh chose for themselves was conquered over and over and over again by the surrounding nations.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point in 1 Kings 16, it was occupied not by Israelites, but by the Moabites.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're saying that Ahab went to go and reconquer and liberate the Moabite land and bring it back over to Israel.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: But then the king, this King Mesha, right, he says, Israel has gone to ruin.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it has gone to ruin forever, because what did he do?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he goes and takes it back.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the men of Gad, we know them, lived in the land of Adaroth.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the cities they claim for themselves in Numbers 32.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: From ancient times, and the king of Israel built Adaroth for himself, and I fought against the city, and I captured, and I killed all the people from the city as a sacrifice for our false god Kemosh and for Moab.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So they did not have a good time in Gilead.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: They did not get what they were looking for.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: They thought that they were finding their plan was going to be better than God's.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, it was far worse.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, they experienced the difficulties of their own decision.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, that's kind of the end of the narrative.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the tribe of Reuben basically altogether disappears from the Bible because they were d uh, their numbers had dwindled so far down.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, we don't hear any more about these tribes after the nation of Assyria Assyria comes in, and the first nation or the first groups of people who are taken off into slavery to Assyria when they are deported as slaves are those who are east of the Jordan.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Ten to fifteen years later, the nation of Assyria comes and takes over the rest of the northern kingdom.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've fallen asleep already, what I'm trying to tell you is that it did not work out very well.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it did not work out very well for reasons that we are familiar with, because they rejected the promises of God.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they made a great error.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were desiring to abandon their fellow believers and carrying out God's critical mission.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: This was the problem.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And even though they'd sent some of their fighting men, that did not mean that their heart was in what they were trying to do.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That did not mean that they were committed, quite obviously, and it did not mean that the plan that they had chosen instead of God's was going to bring success.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are somebody who cares about what the Bible says, then the question you should now be asking is, okay, um, what does this mean for me?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're not a theocracy, we are not divided up into tribes, we are not the nation of Israel, we're not going on a holy war.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: But what we do have to ask ourselves is what is God's critical mission for us today?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something in the Bible where every single person is supposed to be a part of it, just like ancient Israel was supposed to entirely be united by God's plan?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 28, 19 and 20, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Great Commission.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was crucified, he rose again, hung out for forty days, and as he was about to leave and ascend to heaven, he says, one more thing.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what y'all are supposed to do while I'm gone.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: In order to make a disciple, it means that you have to share the gospel with them.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it means that that gospel takes root by the power of the Holy Spirit, and you don't just leave, you continue to develop and raise up disciples who will then go on and share the gospel with other people.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, This is going to be the battle plan moving forward.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: No longer are you fighting holy wars with swords, you're fighting them with the word of God and the gospel.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is how spiritual warfare is going to be conducted now, is everybody who is a Christian, who has believed in Jesus Christ, is being called into this great, amazing, holy mission of God called the Great Commission.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And through that, it is the one all-encompassing fact for every Christian is that they are supposed to participate in the Great Commission.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: The problem then is why do we act so often like Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we commit the great error?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because often we abandon our fellow believers in carrying out God's critical mission.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: We do this in two ways.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: The first way is that we often want to just simply be exempted from the critical mission.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are like the leaders of the old tribes who said, Hey, Moses, can we just like not go across the Jordan with you?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, we're we're back here.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: We got our foam finger, we're fans, we're rooting for you, praying, praying for you that you will do well, but we don't want to fight.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of reasons why we might want to be exempted, but human nature would tell us it's basically the same reason that they had, which is they found something that they liked better than God's plan.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And for Reuben and for Gad and for half of Manasseh, they said, uh, we're big fans of Gilead.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'd like to stay here while you go on and do your thing.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what that looks like for us is uh we pick and choose things and add things to our life.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: We choose the present over what is in the future, and we tack on all of this baggage to our lives so that we're really unable to carry out the mission that God has called us to be a part of.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: We step back, we choose not to engage, and we do so, and I should say, when we do so, we also fall into one of the great problems that Moses addressed, which is that it is discouraging for our brothers and sisters in Christ when we say, hey, we're a fan of the Great Commission, but that's for everybody else to take care of, not me.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna step back over here.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's discouraging because we're all supposed to be united in this mission.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I both know when we are united in a mission, it becomes a lot easier to carry it out because we're surrounded by people who are committed to the same thing, who are dedicated to the same purpose, and who have their eyes set on the same goal.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's real hard when somebody comes along at the end of the group project and says, I didn't come to any of the meetings, can I still get a good grade?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Not if I have anything to say about it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I said.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: We run into a problem because we often want to be exempted.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And some of us, frankly, are not involved in the Great Commission at all.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: But there are many of us, too, who also then take the next step, which is what Reuben and Ged, half of Manasseh did.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: They want to compromise.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, okay, what is the bare minimum?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is the least amount that we could do so that the surrounding tribes don't get fussy with us, right?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: They set the bar as low as it could possibly go, and then they cleared that bar.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: God said, send every single person, and they said, How about we lead 70,000 behind?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens too, what we don't realize is that as we are doing this bare minimum, as we are doing, you know, just enough to get by so that we don't feel guilty, we don't realize we are slowly drifting out to sea and away from God's purposes.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: You say, well, hey, I go to church once a month, I dropped$20 in the plate, I prayed for the people who were at Camp Catapult, you know, I listened to Caleb on the radio.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've done enough so that Connor isn't gonna ask me if I could lead a small group, right?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've done enough so that nobody's gonna talk with me.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what you don't realize is as you are doing this, you're doing the exact same thing as those tribes, right?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart is split.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is not fully committed to God's purposes.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: With your mouth, you might be saying that you are committed, but with your actions, really, what is shown is that we've put forward 40,000 and left 70,000 behind.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said, when we do that, what you find is like those tribes who then settled in the east who said, Hey, we're still a part of Israel.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: We know what's going on.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're we love them.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're still a part of the nation.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: When those raiding parties come, when, and for us, when life gets really hard, we realize that we're not actually as close to God as we were thinking we were.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we weren't a part of his critical mission.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you say, how can I fix the great error?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I desire to abandon fellow believers and carrying out God's critical mission, or maybe my language wouldn't be that strong.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to be a part of it myself, or I want to do as little as possible without feeling like I've failed.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: The great truth is that we're all called to participate in God's kingdom, and by faith we trust that what is coming is better than what is here now.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Those nine and a half tribes that went in and crossed the Jordan, who were willing to cross the Jordan in the first place, they didn't know what their inheritance was gonna be.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: God had said, I've prepared something for you, and they said, That's good enough.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: We trust that the God who has provided for us and who has been faithful to us and who has never ever let us down and who has been exceedingly merciful and gracious to us, we're gonna bet all of our chips on the fact that He is going to do good by us for carrying out His mission.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that what the other tribes did is they said, We love what's here and now.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: We love what we can see.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what the Bible tells us over and over and over again is it's not about what you can see, it's about faith and having hope for the future, right?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: If everything was about what we can see, then we would all live these very short-sighted lives where we were concerned most of all with our immediate gratification and satisfaction, right?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: We would do exactly what we always want to do, but what shortcuts and undermines our ability to have faith and work towards something that is much greater than all of us individually.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have to get that.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: That we are all a part of something that is much, much bigger than our individual lives.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: God has called us into this great plan, divine plan for the world.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I want you to be a part of it.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to commit to it.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what God tells us is that being a part of that critical mission, right?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Saying that we're participating in it, it often requires sacrifice.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always look as exciting or easy as staying in the land of Gilead.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you take those two pathways to their natural end, one of them leads to a lot of disappointment, and one of them leads to fulfillment in the promises of God.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of them realizes, as the two and a half tribes did, that all the things they thought were beautiful turned to ash over time because they did not trust in God's promises.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And those who are a part of the nation of Israel recognized that their faith, that God was faithful to them, that he honored his promises, and that he walked with them all the way.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that what is so difficult about this is that ultimately what I'm asking you is to follow God with your entire heart.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I recognize that that is a long way to go for some of us.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a long way to go for me.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't follow God with all of my own heart.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've left 70,000 troops behind, but I've probably left like 20,000.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe 30.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: My life does often stay on the east side of the Jordan River.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: My life does not always follow God over onto the west side into his plans.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I recognize and I have seen, as you probably have too, though, that when I have chosen to stay back, it is never really as fulfilling as I think it's going to be, ever.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: It might be fun for a while, but sometimes you have to say no to those things to say yes to great things.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what God is doing, and I would also say, as a final thought, like some of the things we're saying no to are good things.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with Reuben saying this is a great place for our cattle to graze.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's wise.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: But there were good places for their cattle to graze in Israel.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like Gilead had a monopoly on green grass.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we take what is right in front of our face when God wants us to keep moving forward and to sacrifice so that we can be a part of his great plan, because Gilead is never worth it in the end.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ever.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's never worth it in the end.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: The most fulfilling thing that you will ever experience is getting to the gates of heaven by trusting in Jesus Christ and hearing, well done, good and faithful servant, and knowing that part of that was because you didn't max out this life, but lived for the eternal one.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in order to hear the well done, good and faithful servant, there are some things in this life that are good.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you say, yeah, I'm gonna say no to those so I can say yes to something that is great.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is the great truth.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately it's covered in this sort of wild, obscure story about two and a half tribes not wanting to cross a river.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: God says, be a part of my plan.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I have great things coming.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are still blessings to be encountered in this life, but they're not as great as the ones coming.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know that Gilead wasn't worth the trouble.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's tempting.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, there are a lot of wonderful things about the life that we live now, a lot of things that draw our attention and our time and our treasure away from your mission.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, they are not fulfilling ultimately.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would help us to realize that.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because even though we might know it in our heads, it doesn't always come out in the way we choose to construct our lives.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that we might be people of the Great Commission, that we would be a church of the Great Commission, that we would be a place, God, where we recognize that sometimes sacrifice is what is required.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because the life of ease would not lead us to the promised land.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we thank you that by your grace and by your faith and by your mercies, Lord, God, you are answering all of the hopes and promises of people who have gone to be with you and who are just a little bit ahead of us.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Father, might we hear, well done, good and faithful servant, because we gave up a little bit during this life so that we could be live forever with you and carry out your purposes to the best of our abilities.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because God, that was a far better use of our effort.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we thank you.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I love you.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.