Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 11, 2023 | Numbers - Holy War

Transcript

June 11, 2023 | Numbers - Holy War · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we read the Old Testament because it's 75% of our Bible, okay?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not reading the Old Testament, you're not reading 75% of your Bible, which is three-quarters of your Bible.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So reading the Old Testament is really important.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes reading the Old Testament is difficult, right?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons it can be difficult is because we get to passages that we don't either don't understand or are so different than the world that we live in today that it can be, it becomes a stumbling block to us, especially if we don't try and seek out answers.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure this has been the case for you.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's been the case for me.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: There have been times where I've read the Old Testament, especially kind of earlier on in my faith, and I'd get to a place and be like, I don't know what that means, and then I would shut my Bible and set it away for a while.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so my goal is that we can tackle some of these hard things so that we continue to read the 75% of our Bible.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is the Old Testament.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning we're gonna look at one of those hard passages, though.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're gonna look at one of those passages that makes a lot of people set their Bibles aside, and it's in Numbers chapter 31.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to turn there, we're gonna be talking about Israel going to war.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when Israel goes to war, um, it's a really intense war.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they there's a lot of death, there's a lot of destruction, and uh if you read this without any sort of context, uh normally what you're gonna come away with is the fact that um Israel kind of went overboard, it seems like, when they were fighting.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to tackle this because look, so we're we're in numbers, right?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: As we keep going, we have Deuteronomy, Judges, um, excuse me, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we have a lot of war coming up, okay?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, there's gonna be a lot of this sort of thing.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And every single time we get to it, even just speaking from the perspective of our church, going through Old Testament books in the spring over the next couple years, every time we get into an intense war, I'm not gonna devote a whole message to it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of this this morning also is like, hey, this is a repeatable sort of instruction that we can think back upon.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, my preamble's done.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Numbers chapter 31 is where we begin today.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to turn there, you see that the Lord spoke to Moses and said, Execute vengeance for the Israelites against the Midianites.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: After that, you will be gathered to your people.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to look at Numbers 31.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You are going to understand more about what it means when Israel goes to war, and then you're going to understand what it means when the Bible tells us that we are still at war today.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But back here in Numbers 31, God tells Moses, he says, You're going to go to war against Midian, and it'll be the last thing that you do.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Moses has lived for about 120 years.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: He has been a great leader for the nation of Israel.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: God's chosen people.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he brought them out of slavery, he instituted laws for an entire nation, he has been their faith leader until the high priest was established.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: He has led them in other sort of military endeavors.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He has counted the nation.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He has brought them really here to where they're supposed to be.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: The one thing that Moses isn't able to do because of his sin at the waters of Meribah is he's not able to lead them into the promised land.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That initially had been his goal, had been the Lord's hope for him, but Moses failed in that account.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so he is going to be able to go up onto a mountain and look over into the promised land, but he can't enter it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is really the last big thing that Moses is going to tackle before that time comes, and he shares his final words with Israel in the book of Deuteronomy.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But two things that we need to talk about, though, before we keep reading in Numbers 31.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: The first is why are they fighting Midian?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the second is uh really why are they going to war at all?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a really relevant question.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, first, why are they fighting Midian?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're fighting Midian, um, and we are we did skip over a section, right?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because you might recall Balaam, right?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The talking donkey from last week.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we have Balaam, and he was trying to curse Israel.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was numbers 22 through 24.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the extra, extra podcast this month, I talked about uh the sin at uh Peor, in the Valley of Paor.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was Numbers 25, leads into numbers 26, um, but now we're in numbers 31.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason I bring that up is because numbers 25 had to do with the Midianites.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, long story short, Balaam, the dude who wanted to curse Israel, right, and failed, he's on his way home and stops in Midian.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the Midianites, they worship a false god like all the other nations around Israel called Baal Peor.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and Baal Peor, uh, the way that you worship is through sexual acts.
• 5:05
  unknown: Okay?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh Balaam entices uh the sort of priestesses of this false god to infiltrate the Israelite camp and to have them begin to worship this false God.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: You get wink, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You get what I'm saying.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's what's going on, and that was a really big deal because it was the first time since the incident at the golden calf, like way, way back in the beginning, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: In Exodus.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first time, 40 years that Israel had worshipped a God other than Yahweh, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Other than the Lord, the one who created us all.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're about to do like phase two of going into the promised land.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, they went, they failed, they couldn't go into the promised land, they circle for 40 years, the first generation dies away, second generation's trying to come in.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's who we're talking about, and things aren't looking great.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what brings us to the war with the Midianites.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: God says you need to take vengeance upon them because what they did to you was not just two tribes intermixing.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: What they did to you was a targeted attempt to overthrow your system of faith and to undermine your reliance upon God and really your the whole group of people.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's a really, really big deal of what happened.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then we get to uh frankly a much larger question, and the one that occupies our mind anytime we get to heavy stuff like this, and we say, but why is Israel going to war?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that Israel is like really going to go to war.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're going to read in Numbers 31, and there's a lot of death, and there's a lot of destruction, and there's a lot of things.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: If we're just reading from our perspective, like just the way that we would think about war today, you're going to look at it and go, man, it feels like they kind of went overboard.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason why, and this is so important, the reason why war is being conducted this way in ancient Israel is because God's forces are literally fighting a physical battle against the spiritual forces of evil.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's the short version.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: The longer version takes like just a second longer to explain, but it's really important.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, way back at the beginning, right, we have God.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: He created Adam and Eve.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to have a relationship with him.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Satan comes in, right, entices them, and they uh essentially reject God and they're thrown out of the garden.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but they had been given the instruction to be fruitful and multiply.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Only phase one, sort of round one, doesn't work.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of things go downhill, and that's where Noah and the flood comes in.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a restart.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've got round two.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Noah and his descendants are given the same instruction as Adam and Eve: be fruitful and multiply.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they are fruitful and they do multiply like rabbits.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as they spread over the whole world, the point was that they would spread their faith in God as they continued to go.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But as we get to Genesis chapter 11, a very, very important event happens, which is called the Tower of Babel.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Tower of Babel or Babylon, what happened was all of Noah's descendants, right?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is supposed to be all of creation worshiping God, instead they come together and build this thing where they say, We're gonna make our name for ourselves, we're gonna reach the heavens, we're going to be like God.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And God is like, Nope, that's my thing, you don't do that.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he does is he scatters the nations.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, normally what people know about the Tower of Babel is that that is when like languages were formed, right?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like the expulsion of these people to the corners of the earth, and that's when different uh sort of nationalities or ethnicities began to develop.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a much deeper, and to Numbers 31, important thing that happens spiritually, okay?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's going on is God divides the nations, okay?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what he does as he's dividing the nations, all right, is he makes a little tiny nation for himself, and that is Israel.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: This little tiny nation that God made for himself, that is the one that is now going to carry out all of the plans that Israel pre or that God's people previously were supposed to do as a whole world.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Only now God is putting everything behind this little nation, Israel.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is so important as you're reading the Old Testament to get that like God is backing a specific people because he says, all right, the rest of you want to reject me.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I will eventually, he lets them, okay, you can reject me.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I will let you worship the things that you want to worship, but I'm going to carry out my plan, my promises, my salvation for the world through this group of people.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is why, for instance, this has nothing to do with 31, but this is why, for instance, it's so important that like Israel, throughout the Bible, we see examples where they're smaller than the nations that they're attacking.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's because God's like, yeah, my people, like even David Goliath is a classic example.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, my people are tiny, okay?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The average height of an Israelite was like five foot, okay?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So my people are tiny, but I am strong and I'm going to overcome.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the spiritual thing that happened, and this is why the war with Midian is going on, is because when God hands these other nations over, Deuteronomy 32 tells us that God entrusted the care of these other nations to angels.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that these angels rebelled against God and were opposed to him.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what do we call fallen angels?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: They are demons.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, God didn't make ones with wings and ones with horns, okay?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Demons are just a synonym for fallen angels.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, if you're tracking with me, what's going on is we have God, who's over the nation of Israel, and then you have all these other nations.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: They worship false gods, they go by in the Old Testament names like Baal and Asherah and Dagon.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: My writing's bad.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh Molech.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be another one.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, but all of these things are not actually, as the Bible describes them, dead um idols of wood and stone and metal.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But what is going on behind them is the people in these nations are worshiping spiritual powers of evil.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the word demons.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is also the word demons.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so what's going on, when this battle is raging, okay, is that Israel is fighting a physical battle against the spiritual forces of evil.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: When God fights against Midian, who is worshiping Baal, he is going against one who is backed by the forces of evil, which is Satan, okay?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so you really do have a battle between good and evil.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's not like this sort of like gray sort of, but maybe it is God versus Satan, and the battlefield is the armies of Israel and Midian.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is why in Deuteronomy 32, in describing these other nations, it says they provoked God's jealousy.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is right after the Tower of Babel.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: They provoked God's jealousy with different gods, they enraged him with detestable practices, they sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new gods that had just arrived, which your ancestors did not fear.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: You ignored the rock who gave you birth.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You forgot the God who gave birth to you, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of summarizes what we're talking about here.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: God made these people, they rejected him.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: God says, okay, fine, if you're gonna reject me, worship what you want to worship.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to back Israel, but instead, these other nations are now going to be worshiping, whether willfully or ignorantly, the powers of darkness.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this is also why.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Last thing before we get to Numbers 31, in Numbers 33, God speaks to Moses and he tells them why and what they are supposed to do when they go into the land of Canaan, the promised land.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you might notice the first thing he tells them.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tell the Israelites, when you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, and what?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Destroy their stone images and cast images and demolish all their high places.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because primarily this is a spiritual battle.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a physical battle for land, which comes second.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: You are then to take possession of the land and settle in it, because I have given you the land to possess.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: They will harass you in the land where you will live, and what I had planned to do to them, I will do to you.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, when we get back to Israel, they are fighting a physical battle against the spiritual forces of evil.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: As we get into Numbers 31 here, you're gonna see some really intense language.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why there's so much death, the reason why it's total destruction, the reason why it is complete warfare is because in the truest sense of the word, it is God, basically, Israel is a proxy for the war of God against Satan and his forces.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it is only through like that narrow sort of passageway that you can grasp what is going on here as well as the rest of the conquest of the promised land.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, when they don't drive out all the other nations and they do begin to worship these false idols like they did in Numbers 25, why God is so upset with them, because they are not just worshiping a thing, they are worshiping Satan.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, Numbers 31, verses 3 through 6.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Moses spoke to the people.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: God says, Go and do this.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Moses speaks.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Equip some of your men for war.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: They will go against Midian to inflict the Lord's vengeance on them.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Send one thousand men to war from each Israelite tribe.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So one thousand were recruited from each Israelite tribe out of the thousands in Israel, twelve thousand equipped for war.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Moses sent one thousand from each tribe to war.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: They went with Phineas, son of Eliezer the priest, and whose care were the holy objects and signal trumpets.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we get here, Moses goes to the twelve tribes, right?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: The uh the ones that the uh the tribe of uh I think it's Joseph was split into Ephraim and Manasseh, and so that's what covers over Levi.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we have twelve again.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, he goes to them and he says, Hey, I know some of you are different sizes, you're all gonna send one thousand because jointly we are all in this together.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: We are all symbolically unified in purpose because we are going forth with this declaration of God.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is also why Phineas, his dad, is the high priest.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and Phineas, if you either read Numbers 25 or listened to the podcast on it, you'd know that Phineas played a special role in the encounter with the Midianites.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's this holy guy.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not just some like guy who's gonna bless them, but he's going forward in the battle formation because, again, this is not just like people crossing swords.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on behind them is a spiritual battle.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so God is sending this delegation, right?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: They are a holy army that is moving forward.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is not, I'll get to this later on, but this is not the way that things work now.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is different and entirely specific to biblical times.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go on, they waged war against Midian, as the Lord had commanded Moses and killed every male.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Along with the others slain by them, they killed the Midianite kings, Evi, Rechem, Zur, Hur, and Reba.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Fancy let us down, the five kings of Midian.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: They also killed Balaam, son of Beor, with the sword.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's our dude, right?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: He incited them to rebellion, and he meets his end.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Should have gone home.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Israelites took the Midianite women and their dependents captive, and they plundered all their cattle, flocks, and property.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then they burned all the cities where the Midianites lived, as well as all their encampments, and took away all the spoils of war and the captives, both people and animals.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: They brought the prisoners, animals, and spoils of war to Moses, the priest Eliezer, and the Israelite community at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's total warfare, okay?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, up to this, like, based upon what we've said, like either you you're with me and you're understanding kind of why this is happening, or you don't.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things also is I don't want to impress upon you that you should just like get excited necessarily or love that this is happening, like, oh, more warfare passages.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is revealed as we keep going through the book of Numbers, and uh Numbers 31, is that even this holy warfare is ultimately something that doesn't jive with God's plan for having a holy nation.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's a problem with war is that it makes dead people, okay?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And dead people are not a part of God's plan for the world.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Dead people are something that are unclean, and I know we're going back to Leviticus and stuff here, but like the army is in trouble.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: They can't even enter into the camp for a week because they were near dead people.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Last passage in Numbers 31 I want to share with you.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to keep going just a little bit.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: See, Moses and the priest Eliezer come out and they stop the army from coming into the camp.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, You have things, you are unclean, and things with you are unclean.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they went to meet them.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Moses became furious with the officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, who were returning from the military campaign.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Have you let every female live?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: He asked them.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yet they are the ones who, at Balaam's advice, incited the Israelites to unfaithfulness against the Lord and the Pior incident, so that the plague came against the Lord's community.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So now, kill every male among the dependents and kill every woman who has gone to bed with a man, but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not gone to bed with a man.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, total warfare.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on here is Moses says, Hey, um, the reason we went to war is because these ladies, these priestesses of Baal Peor, they were the ones that started it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: They were the ones that incited Israel to rebellion.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: They are the ones that kind of kicked off this whole thing.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so they should also die, right?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is not warfare as we would understand it, because God is saying everything that either has brought about sin or will grow up to fight against Israel, they are going to be put to death.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes us uncomfortable, right?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have to talk about it.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: It makes us uncomfortable because this is not something that we're familiar with seeing.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, once again, we have to understand kind of what we're building up here in the background.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: But also, though, there's a pivot that's coming.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is a time where God Himself is going to say, yes, but violence, the thing that makes dead people, is not going to be ultimately what saves the world, but it is a means to carrying out his plan of salvation.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Israel is going to go into the promised land, and through a whole lot, through the 75% of your Bible, that's the Old Testament, right?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Through all of those things that we have going on, God is going to bring about this situation, okay, where about 2,000 years ago, he arrives on the scene, God Himself is Jesus Christ, and he is going to switch the paradigm from which we see spiritual warfare.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: No longer is it something where we do it with.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: With swords and pieces of metal, or you know, cannons or whatever, but we do it through a completely different method.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we take Numbers 31.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna revisit here in a second, but walk with me to the Garden of Gethsemane for a s for a moment.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to see what Jesus says about this and about the new rules for war that you and I are a part of, because this affects us.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 26.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in the process of being arrested.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then they came up, took hold of Jesus, and arrested him.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: At that moment, one of those with Jesus reached out his hand, this is Peter, and drew his sword.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: He struck the high priest's servant and cut off his ear.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus told him, Put your sword back in its place, because all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think that I cannot call on my father, and he will provide me here and now with more than twelve legions of angels?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: How then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, if there was ever a time to go to battle against the forces of evil, you would think, as Peter did, that it would be when the Messiah is about to be arrested and killed.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, what God is doing is he is going again against the forces of evil, because the New Testament tells us that Satan was behind the plot to crucify Christ, right?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was the one who convinced Judas to give him up.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us, 1 Corinthians actually, that Satan was convinced that by killing the Messiah he was winning.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: God says different plans.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like Balaam, God is going to use the ignorance of evil people or evil ones to bring about his ultimate blessing for the world.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, God did allow evil for a second to triumph.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And through that brought about the greatest part of his promise to Abraham.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Tower of Babel, the Lord splits the nations in Genesis chapter 11.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter 12, God calls one man to begin a new nation, and he promises to that man that the world will be blessed through him.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that blessing comes through God in Jesus Christ.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what that also does is it changes how we handle spiritual warfare.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: It changes how we handle spiritual warfare because now the mean our sword is no longer a metal weapon, but it is the word of God and it is the gospel.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus here says, listen, my power has never been the issue.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: If he's using the Roman uh definition for allegiance, he's saying, I could call up to 70,000 angels right now.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Me fighting against them was never the problem.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have something greater that is coming about.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see is from that sort of blossoming from the New Testament forward, we now have a shift, a 180-degree turn that you and I are still involved in this battle against evil, okay?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it is not fought in the wilderness of the desert.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is fought in your neighborhood, it is fought in your workplace, it is fought in your family, it is fought in your home, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what is going on here is you are still in the battle.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are in the thick of it, and you are called to fight.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the way you fight, the method of your fighting, the tools and implements of war that you have have been changed forever.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is why when Paul in Ephesians brings up the armor of God, we should be struck with awe at reading this passage because it's not just about how needed is to follow after Jesus.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is drawing upon the military history of Israel.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like the census in numbers is a military census.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're counting all the fighting men.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's what those numbers represent.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he's drawing upon that heritage, and he says, Yes, but war is different now.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds the same.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, our battle is not against people, our battle is against the forces behind those people.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Our battle is against Satan and demons, and we are backed by God.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is the battleground today.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason, he says, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And having prepared everything to take your stand.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And again, if we're reading, we're like, take my stand, ready to roll, like let's move out.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandal with readiness for the gospel of peace.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you and I are still involved in spiritual warfare.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: There is still evil.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: It just looks a little bit different than Numbers 31.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is no nation today that is backed by God the way that biblical Israel was backed by God.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is no army moving on the earth today that is backed in the same way.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: The continuation, though, from the Old Testament is that Satan is still moving around like a lion looking for people to devour, and his gambit is total warfare as well.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Satan is not taking hostages.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: His first and foremost goal is that as many people as possible would not come to Christ.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: His second greatest goal is that as many Christians as possible would leave, would live lives of a weak and uninterested faith.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's his thing.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not looking for a peace treaty, he's not looking for a white flag, he is looking to destroy as many people as possible.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is why when we read in Numbers 31 and you're like, yeesh, all this death, and it's like, yes, because it's total warfare.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're not looking for Satan to make an armistice agreement with us or a truce or a treaty, because he needs to be destroyed, and all of his forces.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was I was watching um a movie with Hannah that brought this to mind.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know how many of you, I don't, based upon the box office, not many people saw it, but uh Cruella, uh, the Disney movie about Cruella DeVille, right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Her origin story.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was struck because we love as our society to make anti-heroes, right?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: We love that the villain and the book or the movie or the TV show, like they have a sympathetic cause, and there's a reason like we could kind of root for them, but hey, they're bad, so not really.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we love anti-heroes.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was watching Cruella, um, probably much to Hannah's annoyance after a while, I just kept going, this is the lady who skins dogs for coats, right?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's her thing in the Dalmatians movie.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: She wants to kill dogs for clothing.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was, it just cracked me.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who was the the executive that's like, you know who needs a bigger backstory?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is the lady who skins dogs.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem that we have, right, is like sometimes there are just evil things.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not everything needs to be a shade of gray.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, and specifically when we talk about spiritual warfare, it really is good versus evil.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's not uh degrees to which we follow this thing.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to take the lesson of Numbers 31.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, as again, as we move forward in the books of the Bible and we see Israel going to war, you're like, they're supposed to be destroying them all.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because what did God say in 32?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, there'll be uh barbs in your eyes and thorns in your side.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't destroy them all, you're gonna start worshiping their gods.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you start worshiping their gods, which are demons, you are not going to follow after me.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you stop following after me, you are going to break your covenant promises.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you break your covenant promises, you're gonna get thrown out of the promised land.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you get thrown out of the promised land, then it kind of defeats the purpose of going into the promised land.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is always, has been, and will continue to be total warfare.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, the methods that you and I have, though, the means of our warfare, it is fought in the battleground of conversion so that as many people as possible would hear the gospel of love and grace and mercy and come to Jesus Christ through that.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to be warriors with swords anymore.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen some of y'all's Facebook posts.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: We need to calm down just a little bit.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you are not supposed to be people who are just saying things, and whether somebody believes you or not is up to them.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be empathetic, you're supposed to be winsome, you're supposed to be kind, you're supposed to be loving, because that is the war that God has us on right now.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it is still one where we are fighting against Satan, but instead of fighting against him with those battles that we read in Numbers 31, we are fighting empowered by the Spirit for the souls of those who don't know God.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Warfare is coming at the very end of the Bible.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very end, and the very end of our future.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: We see that Jesus is going to return.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when he returns a second time, battle happens again.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: But until that time, your job is to share the gospel with as many people as possible so that they might know that God died for their sins, that they can find salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, and they may be saved, and snatch them from the clutches of Satan who is not taking any hostages.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: You are in this battle as well.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I know Numbers 31 is hard.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to understand what's going on behind the scenes, and what is still going on behind the scenes today, and the fact that we are still fighting a spiritual battle, but our weapon is the gospel instead of a sword.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that you would have the full armor of God upon yourself so that you might be able to go out in battle with readiness, with truth, with faith, with mercy, alert to the schemes of Satan, but invincible to the fiery arrows of the evil one that he is throwing your way.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: God, we come before your throne and we say, hey, there are some parts of numbers that are really hard to understand.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, there are some things that happened that are hard for us to accept if we think about them from only our perspective.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we know that you are fighting a big battle.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, your power has never been questioned.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: You are not threatened by evil.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are not intimidated by these false gods.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are not moved off of your position by Satan or his schemes.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: You twist them to meet, Lord, your demands and your will.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we also know that you have called us into battle as Christians today.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, people of your word, that that would now be our weapon.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, I confess to you that I am often scared of battle.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I often do not choose to put on the full armor of God.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that you would embolden me, Lord, and anybody else who feels that way, to be warriors in your kingdom, Lord, not with swords, but with love and mercy and grace and truth, so that as many people as possible might come into your kingdom.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, we might be a people, a church on mission for your kingdom, because we know, Lord, that though battle has not been completely won yet, the war is not over.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And Satan wants as many people as possible, God, in Topeka to not know you.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, we pray all these things with both a heavy heart and a heart that yearns to do your will to the best of our abilities.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I pray that you would take those words to heart.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the armor of God and your position as a warrior for his kingdom.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person has been called to do it.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that should be our mission as we leave these doors is to go out and to fight this kind of battle with the word of truth and with the gospel.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.