Oh, let the Son of God enfold you
With His Spirit and His love Let Him
fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh,
let Him have the things that mold you
And His Spirit like a dove Will descend
upon your life and make you whole Welcome
to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible
teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel,
Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading
us on a verse-by-verse study Through
the entire Bible And on today's edition of
The Word for Today We'll continue to focus
our attention on The destruction of the Midianites
As we pick up in Numbers Chapter 31,
verse 9 And now with today's lesson Here's
Pastor Chuck Smith And the children of Israel
took all the women of Midian captive And
their little ones And they took the spoil
and all their cattle And all their flocks
and all their goods They also burned with
fire all of the cities where they dwelt
And all their forts And they took all
the spoil of all of the booty Both
of man and beast So it was really
quite a tremendous slaughter These 12,000 men
went in and wiped out these Midianite cities
And they brought the captives and the booty
and the spoil to Moses And to Eliezer
the priest And to the congregation of the
children of Israel To the camp on the
plains of Moab by Jordan across from Jericho
And Moses and Eliezer the priest And all
the leaders of the congregation went to meet
them outside the camp But Moses was angry
with the officers of the army With the
captains over the thousands And the captains over
the hundreds Who had come from battle And
he said, have you kept all of the
women alive?
He was angry because they brought all these
women back He said, look These women caused
the children of Israel Through the council of
Balaam Now here's where we You know, in
the earlier part We didn't see Balaam's implication
in his advice to the king But here
we're told Balaam's advice to the king These
women through the council of Balaam Caused the
children of Israel to trespass against the Lord
In the incident of Peor And there was
a plague among the congregation of the Lord
Now, therefore, kill every male among the babies
And kill every woman Who has known man
intimately And so a continuous slaughter Killed all
the little baby boys And they killed all
of the women Who had ever had intimate
relations with a man But he said, keep
alive for yourselves all of the young girls
Who have not known a man intimately And
as for you, remain outside the camp for
seven days Whoever has killed any person Whoever
has touched any slain Purify yourselves and your
captives And on the third day and on
the seventh day Now, why did Moses order
the baby boys to be killed?
I don't know To us it seems rather
harsh and rather cruel Rather severe And it's
just something that is there And I have
no real explanation for it There are a
lot of things in the Bible For which
I have no real explanation And it's just
there, I accept it And I am certain
that there was a good reason for it
And I imagine that we'll find out someday
But you can speculate But that's all it
is, is speculation So they were to purify
They had done all the slaughtering They killed
all these people So now they have to
purify themselves Before they can come back into
camp And every garment Everything that's made of
leather Woven from goat's hair Everything that is
made of wood You're to wash it The
gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, the
tin and the lead Are to be put
in the fire Because they can endure the
fire They were to be cleansed by the
fire Purified through the fire And purified with
the water of purification But that which cannot
endure the fire Just put it through the
water of purification Wash your clothes And on
the seventh day be clean And afterward you
can come back into the camp And the
Lord spoke to Moses saying Count up the
plunder that was taken Both of man and
beast You and Eliezer the priest The chief
fathers And they divide the plunder into two
parts Between those who took part in the
war Who went out to battle And all
of the congregation So they took all of
the plunder Divided it in half The one
half of the plunder Went to the congregation
of Israel The other half went to these
12,000 men Now obviously the 12,000
fellows Got a much larger personal share Of
the plunder Because you remember there's over 600
,000 adult males in Israel And so only
12,000 went to war And thus the
12,000 get One half of the plunder
And the other Rest of the congregation gets
the other half But And then they were
to levy a tax For the Lord On
the men of war who went to battle
One for every 500 persons Of cattle, donkeys,
and sheep Take it from their half And
give it to the priest So of the
plunder The half that the 12,000 got
One out of every 500 went to the
Lord Of the donkeys, of the sheep, of
the cattle And of the persons From the
children of Israel's half The other half of
the plunder The tax was to be one
in 50 Of the persons, the cattle, the
donkeys, the sheep, and the livestock Now here
is the plunder, the booty 675,000 sheep
I mean this was no little battle This
was no little, you know, skirmish on the
border They brought back 675,000 sheep 72
,000 cattle 61,000 donkeys And 32,000
persons in all of women Who had not
known a man intimately So you begin now
to figure what the total population was If
there were 32,000 women who were virgins
You can imagine what the total population of
the Midianites must have been That were wiped
out And of course looking at the size
of the livestock that was brought back 675
,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle And 61,000
donkeys That's quite a bit of booty And
the half of the portion for those who
had gone out to war They received 337
,500 sheep So divide that by 12 And
you find out how many sheep each fellow
got The Lord's tribute of the sheep was
675 Of the cattle, the soldiers got 36
,000 The Lord's tribute was 72 There were
30,500 donkeys The Lord's tribute was 61
And the persons, there were 16,000 in
the one half Of which the Lord's tribute
was 32, one in every 500 So he
gave that to Elijah the priest as the
Lord commanded Moses And then from the children
of Israel They made also the one in
50 drawn from man and beast and gave
it to the Levites Then we read the
officers Who were over the thousands of the
army and the captains The thousands of the
captains and the hundreds came near to Moses
And they said to Moses Your servants have
taken account of the men of war Who
are under our command And not a man
of us is missing What's new?
Remember in the last skirmish in Lebanon Where
the Israelis shot down 89 Syrian jets and
lost none Here 12,000 men went out
to war They numbered when the war was
over and not one was missing Not even
a missing in action Every single one of
them came back Now these fellows recognized and
of course remember The slaughter was tremendous of
their 32,000 virgins that they brought back
as captives Therefore we have brought an offering
recognizing that God was with us We had
divine protection That God delivered them into our
hands We have brought an offering for the
Lord What every man found of the ornaments
of gold and armlets and bracelets and signet
rings and earrings And the necklaces to make
atonement for ourselves before the Lord So Moses
and Eleazar the priest received the gold from
them All of the fashioned jewelry, ornaments And
all of the gold of the offering that
they offered to the Lord From the captains
of the thousands and captains of hundreds Was
16,750 shekels So that the shekel is
a weight And there were 16,750 shekels
The men of war had taken the spoil
every man for himself And Moses and Eleazar
the priest received the gold from the captains
of the thousands and hundreds Brought it into
the tabernacle of meeting as a memorial for
the children of Israel Before the Lord So
God's great victory over the Midianites and his
preservation of his people Now the children of
Reuben That is the tribe of Reuben The
children from the tribe of Gad Had a
very great multitude of livestock And when they
saw the land of Jezer and the land
of Gilead That indeed the region was a
place for livestock They came to Moses and
to Eleazar And the leaders of the congregation
And they said if we have found favor
in your sight, verse 5 Let this land
be given to your servants as a possession
And do not take us over the Jordan
And Moses said to the children of Gad,
the children of Reuben Shall your brethren go
to war while you sit here?
Now why will you discourage the heart of
the children of Israel from going over into
the land Which the Lord has given them?
This is what your fathers did when I
sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see
the land For when they went up to
the valley of Eshcol they saw the land
They discouraged the heart of the children of
Israel So that they did not go into
the land which the Lord had given them
So the Lord's anger was aroused on that
day and he swore an oath saying Surely
none of the men who came up from
Egypt from 20 years old and above Shall
see the land which I swore to give
to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob Because they
have not followed me Except for Caleb and
for Joshua For these two have wholly followed
the Lord So here's the situation, they've come
now to the border of the promised land
They have been wandering for 40 years as
the result of their disobedience God had brought
them to the border of the land once
before They had come to the place of
the entering into the land And were ready
to go in and take the land that
God had promised to give them But the
ten spies that brought back that evil report
Discouraging the hearts of the people by telling
them that it really wasn't a good land
at all Telling them that the cities were
huge fortified cities That the people that lived
in them were giants, we were like grasshoppers
in their sight And they can step on
us and crush us, you know, we can't
do it And their report struck fear in
the heart of the people And of course
the sister to fear is unbelief Fear always
opens the door to unbelief When I begin
to look at the obstacles instead of to
God I begin to fear and with the
fear comes unbelief And the people began to
cry and say why did we ever follow
Moses Why did we ever leave Egypt, let's
get someone to lead us back to Egypt
And the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Israel and God declared That they would
wander for 40 years until that whole generation
Who at that time were 20 years old
and above, that whole generation died And then
your children which you said would be a
prey to them They will be the ones
that will be able to go in and
take the land So now that 40 years
is over That generation has died Moses is
about the last one waiting now to die
When the men, the elders of Reuben and
Gad came to Moses and Eliezer And they
said hey, we don't want to go over
and possess that land We're satisfied here We
like this land, look we're cattlemen, we've got
a bunch of cattle And this is great
cattle country And we just are satisfied here
Now Moses was afraid that their turning back
at this point And not going in to
take the land would bring discouragement to the
rest of the tribes And he knew that
if they did not go in at this
point They could never survive another 40 years
of just wandering and roaming And so Moses
was alarmed And he really began to chide
them for this decision Spiritually these people are
like so many who are satisfied with their
current spiritual development God is challenging you to
go on in to a full commitment In
to that life that God would have you
to know and to experience That rich full
life in the spirit But there are so
many people who say hey man I'm satisfied,
I've got all I want And they're not
going on in their Christian walk They're not
progressing There are many people whose spiritual state
is hit a plateau And they haven't developed
spiritually for years They're still at the same
level that they were 10-15 years ago
There's been no spiritual development Really not to
go forward in your Christian walk is to
go backward Because God wants us to be
going forward Paul the Apostle speaking of his
own experience said I have not yet apprehended
that for which I was apprehended by Jesus
Christ Neither do I count myself complete But
for getting those things which are behind and
reaching forth To those things which are before
I press towards the mark For the prize
of the high calling of God which is
in Christ Jesus Now what was true of
Paul should be true of each one of
us I'm certain that all of us can
declare I have not yet apprehended that for
which I was apprehended by Jesus Christ In
other words God isn't through with me yet
God still has more for me to do
When God apprehended my life and called me
unto himself He had in his mind a
purpose and a plan for me That I
was to fulfill for the kingdom's sake God
knew exactly what he had in mind I
had no idea But God knew exactly what
he had in mind for me And for
my service to him within the kingdom Now
I have not yet apprehended that for which
I was apprehended I haven't yet completed that
purpose and that plan that God has for
my life I believe that had I completed
it I would not be here God would
take me home So I have not yet
apprehended that for which I was apprehended Yet
I'm pressing towards the mark I'm pressing on
I want more of God I want more
of God's work in my life I want
more of God's spirit in the control of
my life So we come to the place,
each of us Where we determine hey I'm
satisfied here Or I want to go on
and I want all that God has for
me These people were satisfied with what they
had already accomplished With the territory that they
had already taken Hey this is great cattle
country, we're cattlemen We're satisfied to stay here
And there are too many Christians that are
in that same category Hey this is great,
I love it, it's good And they've hit
a place of stagnation As far as their
spiritual development goes Dangerous place to be It
is interesting to note That when later the
enemies came against the land The first tribes
to fall were those on the other side
of Jordan Because they didn't have the natural
defenses of the Jordan River They were the
first to go into captivity And we remember
at the time of Jesus When he got
into a little ship with his disciples And
they went to the other side of the
sea To the country of who?
The Gadarenes, or those from the tribe of
Gad And when they came over to the
other side of the sea To the area
of the Gadarenes There met them these two
men Who were possessed by demons Who lived
in caves near the city of Gadara Men
who were so fierce That no one could
approach them They could not be bound with
chains They were sitting there among the rocks
cutting themselves And weeping and screaming And when
they came running at Jesus And the disciples
Jesus commanded the spirits to come out And
the men were delivered But we remember that
the evil spirits went into a herd of
swine That were nearby Now, the keeping, the
raising of pigs Was an unlawful thing for
an Israelite But these people had gotten so
far from the Lord They were engaged in
illegal traffic And when the demons went into
the swine They ran down that steep bank
in the Sea of Galilee So that the
men of the city, the men of Gad
Came to Jesus and they said Hey, would
you mind leaving?
We don't want your kind of stuff around
here Dangerous To not go on and possess
all that God has for you All that
God desires for you Dangerous Finding contentment in
spiritual mediocrity I don't want to come short
of any work that God is desiring to
do in my life Nor do I want
to come short of any work that God
desires to do through my life Press in
and take all that God has for you
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again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues
his verse-by-verse study Through the book
of Numbers That's right here on the next
edition of The Word for Today And
now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith May
the Lord be with you and watch over
and keep you in His love As you
continue to grow in your knowledge and understanding
of Him May the Spirit of God just
move upon your heart and life this week
Drawing you closer to the Lord and in
a greater commitment unto Him That you might
experience the nearness and the fellowship of God
day by day That you might have the
wisdom of God imparted to you in your
time of need That you might have the
power of God to stand against the temptations
That you might live this week a life
of victory through Jesus Christ More than conquer
through Him who loves you And who will
keep you by His grace God be with
you and God bless you In Jesus' name
He tells the story of how God transformed
the lives of ten men to reach the
world Read the testimonies of Greg Laurie, Raul
Reis, Mike McIntosh, John Corson, Skip Heitzik and
others And see for yourself that if God
can use these guys to spread the gospel
worldwide Then God can use you too To
read a sneak preview of the book online
Visit thewordfortoday.org Or call The Word for
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encourage you to check it out This just
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