Preparing to Enter the Land Pt 4

Got two minutes. Is it close enough? Oh, why didn't you tell me? Okay, thank you. I guess we can go ahead and get started now. It's good to see you guys. So let's, if you guys don't mind standing with me, we'll pray and we'll get started. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for the day. God, I thank you for this time that we can come and just set everything aside for a little while

and spend some time in your word, spend some time in worship, Lord. God, just help us to let the joyful noise to you tonight, God, and just prepare our hearts to receive from you. We love you, Lord. We praise you, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like.

Heavenly Father, God, let's pray that tonight, God, we would come to the realization of just how much we truly need you, Lord, over and over and over in our lives, God. Forgive us, Lord, if we've ever thought that we could make it on our own, Lord. Forgive me if I've ever thought that, Lord. God, we need you each and every day. We need thee every hour, Lord.

God, tonight I pray that as Pastor Ryan comes, I just pray that your word go out with power, God, and just minister to our hearts, Lord. We love you, and we pray for you. praise you and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Good evening. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Numbers chapter 34. Numbers 34. Tonight we will finish the book of Numbers.

So yay, I feel good about us, right? We're trucking our way through the Old Testament here. Good stuff's going on. So we've been looking at preparing to enter the land and there's been several different things that we've seen. But tonight as we come to prepare to enter the land, there's again three things that will cover the distribution of the land or the allotment of the

land, if you will. The cities for the Levites and cities of refuge and then inheritance and marriage. So we pick up in chapter 34 verse 1. It says this,

Even the land of Canaan, according to its borders, your southern sector shall extend from the wilderness of Zin along the side of Edom and your southern border shall extend from the end of the salt sea eastward. Your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabeem and continue to Zin and its termination shall be to the south of Kadesh Barnea and it shall reach that place and continue to Asmon. The border shall turn directionally. From Asmon to the brook of Egypt, its termination shall be at the sea. As for the western border,

you shall have the great sea, the Mediterranean Sea. That is its coastline. This shall be your west border and this shall be your north border. You shall draw a border line from the great sea to Mount Hor. You shall draw a line from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath and the termination of the border shall be at Zedad. The border shall proceed to Ziphron and its termination,

shall be at Hazar Anan. This shall be your north border. For your eastern border, you shall also draw a line from Hazar Anan to Shapham. The border shall go down from Shapham to Riblah on the east side of Ain. The border shall go down to reach the slope on the east side of the sea of Chenarith. The border shall go down to Jordan and its termination shall be at the salt sea. This shall

be your land according to its borders all around. Now, I'm not going to go into real detail about some of those places. If you were to want to get a little extra credit for this class, what you can do is you can go find the map in the back of your Bible and you can look for all of those places and you'll see exactly where those are. But it is the land that God had promised to the people. A couple of things I'd like to point out about what

God had to say to Moses about the borders of the land. The first thing that I think is important is that God had detailed borders for the land of Israel. The first thing that I think is important is that God had detailed borders for the land of Israel. They couldn't just go in and take whatever they wanted to. They couldn't just do what they wanted to and extend into as many different lands as they wanted to. God had a specific area that

was for them. He didn't want them to become some sort of empire builders. They only needed to take what God had for them. There was a border for their land. It was promised to them and they had to take it, but there were distinct borders to it. I think that applies somewhat to us as New Testament believers because God has made promises for us and we should absolutely walk in the

promises that God has given to us. As a matter of fact, without getting overly Pentecostal on you, I think you should claim the promises that God has given to you. But we must understand that with the promises that God has given to us, there are borders for the land. Oftentimes, there are denominations that will take this so far and all of a sudden there will be no borders for the land anymore and they'll start telling you things like, well, you know, if you want that house, you should take that house. After all, God has beautiful things in store for you and you should begin to claim the

promises of God. You should be able to be wealthy if you're a believer in Jesus Christ because after all, you should be able to claim the promises of God. And I'm reminded that those aren't the borders of our land. That's what leads us into things like the health and wealth prosperity or prosperity gospel, the name it and claim it movement. And that's not what God ever intended. And so even as the children of Israel

had borders for their land, so we as believers in Jesus Christ have borders for our land. Theirs were laid out right here in the book of Numbers. Ours are laid out throughout scripture and we must always remain within the scriptural borders of the promises that God has given to us. The second thing that I'll point out to you is this, and it's out of verse two. Did you take note of what God referred to the land as? Look at what it

says.

In the margin of my Bible right next to there, I wrote, Because there wasn't anything that the nation of Israel could do to earn this inheritance. They simply had the inheritance because they were chosen by God. Because God said, that's what I'm going to give to you. As a matter of fact, multiple times throughout the Old Testament, God will tell them, I didn't choose you because you were the biggest nation. I didn't choose you because you

were the strongest nation. I didn't choose you because of how great you were. I chose you because I wanted to, because I loved you. I didn't choose you because you were the strongest nation. I didn't choose you because I loved you. And then I gave you this inheritance freely. I gave you this simply because of my love for you. And we are reminded that all of the promises that God has

given to us, the wonderful salvation that we have, the promise of the Holy Spirit being with us while we walk on this earth, and the promise of the eternity that's waiting for us has nothing to do with how good I am. It has nothing to do with how strong I am. It has nothing to do with how special I am. It's simply because God, in his love for you, has given you this inheritance his love and his grace, chose that he would give that to us as believers in Jesus Christ. And so it

was freely given. And I think it's important for us to understand that concept, that all of these wonderful things that God has given to us are just that, the things God has given to us. Well, as he has laid out there to apportion this land, or he's given out the borders of the land, he now tells them that it's time to give out the land by allotment. So notice what it says, verse 13.

The two and a half tribes have received their possession across the Jordan, opposite Jericho, eastward toward the sun rising. The Lord said to Moses, these are the names of the men who shall apportion the land to you for an inheritance, Eliezer the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun. You shall take one leader of every tribe to apportion the land for an inheritance. Now, the...

conquest of the land and the possessing of the land was not just to be done by one tribe. There wasn't just supposed to be one group of people. Okay, you guys are the conquest people. The rest of us are going to hang out till you're done with your job. And then we'll go and we'll live in the land. It was something that everybody was supposed to do. There was supposed to be a

portion of land for everyone. They would take that portion of land, drive out the inhabitants, the enemies of the land, and then dwell there. And he said, you're to divide this land that I just gave you by the borders amongst the nine. Remember, the other two and a half had taken their portion. We talked about it last week. On the other side of the Jordan, they saw something that was good, not necessarily God's best. God,

in his graciousness, allowed them to have that. And so, they're to divide it up. Now, I think it's interesting and very wise how God chooses to divide up the land among the people. If you will, he uses a representative form of government in order to divide the land amongst the people. First of all, he put two men in charge of it, and he chose those two. He chose those two men for very specific reasons. He chose Eliezer the priest, and he chose Joshua

the son of Nun. Why did he choose those two men? Well, he chose someone who was a religious leader, and he chose someone who was a political leader to work together. That way, the power did not completely fall into one man's hands. There would be checks and balances so that if Joshua was only thinking from a political standpoint, he would have Eliezer there as a man of God to keep him

in check. And if they were to divide the land among the people, they would have to divide the land between them. So, there was a potential for Eliezer to only think from a religious standpoint and not what's actually best for the people. Joshua was there as a check and a balance. Interesting how God did this. But not only that, each tribe would have representation because each tribe would send

one leader to meet with Joshua and Eliezer to make sure that the land was apportioned properly amongst the tribes. Now, for this last portion of chapter 34, I'm going to task you with the to read that on your own because it names each of the leaders of the tribes. The only name we really even pay attention to out of that is that Caleb was a part of that because remember, he was one who had a different heart because he followed the Lord wholly. We then jump down to verse 29 of chapter 34. It says, these are those whom the Lord commanded to apportion the inheritance to the sons

of Israel in the land of Canaan. Now, as with every chapter of the Bible, I think it's important that we find ourselves in a position where we're not just talking about the people of Israel, but we're asking the question, what do I take away from this? You ever read a portion of the Bible and you're like, I don't know how to apply this to my life, right? But VeggieTales has it right when they say what we've learned applies to our lives today, right? Because God has a lot to say

in his book, right? So there's two things I think that we take away from this chapter that I think are important for us to pay attention to. Number one, the land was theirs. They had to go in and possess it. The land already belonged to the people of Israel. They had to go in and possess it. God said, this is your land. I've promised it to you, but you have to go in and possess it. You have

to actually go in and do the footwork that needs to be done in order to possess the land. That tells me that my walk with Jesus Christ, just like the children of Israel, is not a passive walk. I don't just sit back and think to myself, you know, if I just think really good thoughts, and I'm pretty sure all of those precious promises of God are going to assimilate themselves into my life, and I will live exactly as God has called for me to live. No, it means that I have to, as J. Vernon

McGee would put it, wear some shoe leather on my faith. And all of those precious promises that God has for me, I have to walk in them. As a matter of fact, we're told in the book of Ephesians that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, but notice the last part of this verse, that you should walk in them. You say, well, if God's already done the work, why do I need to do it? Because he wants you to be a part of it. Because he won't make you do anything that

you don't want to do. He wants you to actively participate in the taking of the promised land in your own life. The land was theirs. They had to possess it. But number two, which I think is sort of telling, is that if you go and do that study of the map, and look at all of the borders that the nation of Israel has, according to what God told them there, they never actually possessed

it. As a matter of fact, if you go and look at the map, it will show you what God laid out for the tribes, and how much they actually lived in, and you'll find that what they possessed was much smaller than what God had for them. It sounds kind of like you and I, right? God has so many things for us, and yet what do we have a tendency to do? We talked about this last week. Be content with

God's second best. Be content with less than what God actually has for us. I remember hearing a quote when I was in Bible college, and thinking, I don't know if I fully agree with this quote, but the older that I get, the longer I walk with the Lord, and the more people I know that have walked with the Lord for a long time, the more I think that this is actually true. And the quote goes like this, we have yet to see the effect of a man of God who has completely surrendered to the work of the Lord. I remember hearing that quote when I was in Bible college,

and thinking, that's not true. There's all kinds of great men of God, that have been completely surrendered to the work of the Lord. The longer that I walk with Jesus, the more people that I know, the more I know humanity, even those of us that really seek the Lord with all of our hearts, the more I realize there's always a little bit of us that we kind of hold back from God, is there not? Listen, we can't be ashamed to admit that. It's

who we are as human beings. There will always be that one portion of my heart that I have a hard time saying, Lord, I want you to be king of my life. I want to possess everything that you have for me, unless it costs me that much. I want you to be king of my life. I want you to be king of my life. Unless I can't do that anymore. Unless it means I have to sacrifice this. I suppose the

moment that you get to that place where you're like, Lord, it's all yours, and I am fully possessing the land, God says, ah, time to graduate, right? That's the way I've always kind of viewed it. But the world has yet to see what a man of God who is fully surrendered to the Lord can do. So the children of Israel had much in front of them. They failed to possess everything

that God had for them. Well, so now we move to chapter 35, because again, he's preparing them to enter the land, and he's given out the allotment for the nine and a half tribes, plus the two and a half on the other side of the Jordan. But now he needs to deal with the Levites. Notice what it says in chapter 35, verse one. Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, opposite of Jericho,

saying, command the sons of Israel that they give to the Levites from the inheritance of their possession, cities to live in. And you should know that the Levites are the ones that are going to give to the Levites pasture land around their cities. The city shall be theirs to live in, and their pasture lands shall be for their cattle, and for their herds, and for all their beasts. The pasture lands of the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits. And you shall measure outside the city on the east 2,000

cubits, and on the south side 2,000 cubits, and on the west side 2,000 cubits, and on the north side, wait for it, 2,000 cubits. 2,000 cubits. With the city in the center, this shall become theirs as pasture lands for their cities. Now remember, what was the portion for the Levites? The portion for the Levites was the Lord and the priesthood. Quite frankly, they probably had the best inheritance of all of them because

their inheritance was the Lord himself. But they would not have a large allotment of land within the city or within the promised land. And yet there still had to be somewhere where the Levites would live. And so they would live in the city. And so they would live in the city. And so they would live. So God said there's going to be 48 cities scattered throughout the nation of Israel

that will be cities for the Levites. That will be where they get to live within the tribes of the nation of Israel. Those cities plus the pasture land that's all around them so that they can also have a place to live. Now, I didn't come up with this next point on my own, but I think it's a really good point that's to be made. Interestingly enough, God did not concentrate all of the

Levites in one area. What did he do with them? He sprinkled them throughout the entire land. 48 different cities throughout, really not that big of a plot of land. God sprinkled the Levites throughout that whole place. Why did he do that? Well, first of all, because the Levites would be an influence for good, right? What was their charge? Their charge was the tabernacle and

the priesthood. These were, if you will, or at least should have been, the most godly of the men of Israel because they were the ones who served before the Lord as the priesthood, right? But not only were they an influence for good, but they were a representation of God among the people. Can you imagine if a city of the Levites was really close to you? You were like,

let's not let the Levites find out about what's going on here, right? There'd be a certain purifying effect to that. It's kind of like when a pastor walks into a room and everybody's talking and all of a sudden everybody gets really quiet and you know what was going on before you got into the room, right? Either someone was telling a dirty joke or they were using really foul language. And once they know that you're a

pastor, they're like, I'll tell you later. And I'm like, you may as well tell them now. Let me just leave the room, right? But that's kind of the influence that the Levites were supposed to have. Interestingly enough, we as Christians are to be much like that because we are to be scattered throughout the entire world. Why? So that we can be an influence for good and a representation

of God. There's a real danger that we can sometimes face as believers in Jesus Christ. We can sometimes want to form our little club here at church and make sure that everybody else stays out there because after all, we have to protect holiness. I need to make sure that I remain holy. Therefore, I never get outside of my four walls. I never get outside of my church walls. We are a

holy club that makes sure that we don't bring any of that nasty sin stuff in here. At that point in time, we're no longer a church. We're a church. We're a church. We're a church. We're a church. We're no longer doing what God has called for us to do as believers in Jesus Christ. You cannot influence the world if you are never out in the world. What does scripture tell us

that we are to be? We are to be in the world, but not of the world, right? We're to be those influences for good and representations of God to all of the people around us. So if we never get out amongst the people, I can't do that. And while there's aspects of, hey, we need to have times of fellowship where we're with believers who understand where we're coming from, there's also then that point in time where we say, now go out amongst the people and

take the good news of the gospel everywhere that you go. The early church experienced an issue very similar to this. You may remember that in the book of Acts, the early church was growing, right? The church in Jerusalem was growing by leaps and bounds. They were adding thousands of people all the time to the church, but they began to have a problem. What problem did they have?

Jesus had told them that they were to be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and into the uttermost parts of the world. They had the Jerusalem thing down really well, but just like you and I, they got comfortable with Jerusalem. And so they never went out amongst the world around them. They never began to go into Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And you know what God allowed in in order to get them to that place? He allowed

persecution. Because a great persecution arose in the church. And there's this great verse in the book of Acts that says, and the church was scattered. And everywhere they went, they preached the gospel. Because that's what we're to be as believers in Jesus Christ. Don't be afraid to get out amongst the people. Don't be afraid to get out in the public and live your faith out in a very public

sort of way. Because we need that. That's what the Levites were amongst the nation of Israel. So they were scattered throughout the land and they were given these cities, cities where they could live. But the next thing that we come to are these cities of refuge. Notice what it says in verse six. It says, the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be the six cities,

of refuge, which you shall give for the manslayer to flee. And in addition to them, you shall give 42 cities. All these cities, which you shall give to the Levites shall be 48 cities together with their pasture lands. As for the cities, which you shall give from the possession of the sons of Israel, you shall take more from the larger and you shall take less from the smaller. Each shall

give some of his cities to the larger. And you shall take less from the smaller. And you shall give some of his cities to the Levites in proportion to his possession, which he inherits. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the sons of Israel and say, when you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall select for yourselves cities to be your cities of refuge, that the manslayer who has killed any person unintentionally may flee there. The cities shall

be to you as a refuge from the avenger so that the manslayer will not die until he stands before the congregation for trial. The cities which you are to give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities across the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan. They are to be cities of refuge. These six cities shall be for refuge for the sons of Israel and for the alien and sojourner among them

that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there. Now, this particular chapter doesn't always make sense to our Western culture mind while some movies may depict this taking place. The law of revenge is not something that we typically are supposed to live by here in the United States of America in most Western cultures. However, in Eastern cultures of this point in time, it was a natural thing to take place.

If something were to happen and you killed an individual, their loved one would at that point in time come after you and seek revenge for you. It was actually what they felt was their family duty to avenge the loss. Their loved one. Well, God put some restrictions on this because remember, there was a law that was set up that if you shed the blood of another in first degree murder, if it was actually murder, then your life was required of you. However, what's being spoken of with these cities of

refuge is very much different. You may have noticed the number of times that the word unintentional was used there. I believe in our culture today, the term in the law would be called manslaughter. It's an accidental death. And at that point in time, if that individual was guilty of manslaughter and unintentional killing, then he could flee to this city of refuge so that the one who wanted to

seek his life to avenge his loved one would not be able to kill him. Now, there were some rules for this city of refuge. First of all, there were six of them that were set up, three on the east side of the Jordan, three on the west side of the Jordan. But these are the things that they were supposed to be. They were supposed to be cities of the Levites. They were for refuge from the avenger. Did you take note of the fact that they were both for the

native resident of Israel, as well as for the stranger or the alien? In other words, these cities of refuge were for anyone that found themselves under the penalty of the law. Perhaps you're going to see where I'm going here in just a moment. But they were also for those who killed unintentionally. It was God's protection against the law of revenge. Now, there was a caveat here. Notice what it says

in verse 16. But if he struck him down with an iron object so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall surely be put to death. If he struck him down with a stone in the hand by which he will die, and as a result he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall surely be put to death. If he struck him with a wooden object in the hand by which he might die, he is a murderer.

And as a result he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall surely be put to death. The blood avenger himself shall put the murderer to death. He shall put him to death when he meets him. Now, the Bible makes two very clear distinctions here. There's a difference between murder and there's a difference between killing. There are two times when God provides protection for the

one who has killed. One is given to us here when it is an unintentional killing, when it was an accident. No one's at fault. It just happened. The other time we find in the book of Romans, and that's if someone is being employed by the government as an arm of judgment for the government. Perhaps it is a police officer. Perhaps it is a military man. When a killing takes place at that point in time,

there is, again, a difference between that and murder. Because at that point in time, you are being used as an arm of judgment for the Lord, not as one who is murdering another. I know that there are many who have been to war that find themselves going, so am I now guilty of murder? And the answer is no. You were serving your government. You were being used as God's instrument of judgment at that point in time. You are not guilty of murder.

But when the time comes where someone is guilty of that, they were to be dealt with swiftly and harshly through a death penalty. So we come now back to verse 22, where he explains a little bit more about unintentional killing. But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity or threw something at him, he would have been killed. He would have been killed. He would have been

without lying in wait or with any deadly object of stone and without seeing it dropped on him so that he died while he was not his enemy nor seeking his injury, then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the blood avenger. According to these ordinances, the congregation shall deliver the manslayer from the hand of the blood avenger, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge to which he fled. And he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who is anointed with the holy oil. But if the manslayer at any time goes beyond the border of his city of refuge to which he may flee, and the blood avenger finds him outside the border

of his city of refuge, the blood avenger kills the manslayer, he will not be guilty of blood because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest, the manslayer shall return to the land of his possessions. These things shall be done. For a statutory ordinance to you throughout your generations in all your dwellings. So what are the

principles then for this unintentional killing? Well, first of all, it has to be deemed unintentional by the congregation. There needs to be a trial. Actually, we're going to find out in the next little section that no one is to be put to death for murder unless there are at least two witnesses to the murder, two witnesses that that's what took place. So it has to be deemed unintentional

by the congregation. Number two, you must stay in the city of refuge because the only time that you're safe from the penalty of the law is if you are in the city of refuge. The third thing is that you must remain in that city of refuge until the death of the high priest. The death of the high priest would set you free from the penalty of the law, and you could now go free outside of the city of refuge. Oh my,

there's just, there's so many, there's so many parallels here. I should have written them all down. I only wrote a handful of them down, but there's so many parallels here. Number one, first parallel that I see is that there is protection for those within the city of refuge, just like there is protection from the law in Christ. The second thing that I see is that in

order to remain protected, where did you have to remain in? The city of refuge. Once you left that city of refuge, you must stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. The second thing that I see is that there is protection for those within the city of refuge. There was no protection any longer, just like the only protection that I have from the judgment of the law

is if I remain in Christ. That's why Jesus said, whoever abides in me will bear much fruit. Why? Because there is protection in Christ. That's why when you get outside of fellowship with the Lord and you get outside of the fellowship of the body of Christ, you oftentimes don't feel that same protection. Why? Because you're no longer seeking it in the person of Jesus Christ. You're no longer

seeking it in the person of Jesus Christ. The next thing that I see is that you were under the penalty of the law until when? You were under the penalty of the law of the manslayer until the death of the high priest. The death of the high priest set you free from the penalty of the law, just like the death of our great high priest, Jesus Christ, sets us free from the penalty of the law. There's one major difference, one major difference between the law and the penalty of the

law. The law of the city of refuge and what Jesus Christ does for us. The only ones who could flee for refuge to the city of refuge were those who had killed unintentionally. If you will, they were ultimately innocent. Jesus is so much better than the law and he is so much better than the cities of refuge. Why? Because we, no matter how guilty we are, can still flee to him for protection

from the penalty of the law. As a matter of fact, only the guilty can apply. Great things that we see here with this city of refuge, but it closes with this warning. Verse 30, if anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses. No person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover, you shall not take ransom for the life of a

murderer who is guilty of death. But he shall surely be put to death. You shall not take ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to live in the land before the death of the priest. So you shall not pollute the land in which you are, for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it. You shall

not defile the land in which you live. You shall not defile the land in which you live. You shall not defile the land in which you live." The first thing he says is, listen, you need to take a trial of a murderer very seriously. You can't put him to death on the testimony of one witness because on the testimony of one witness, there can be a personal grudge, but they're simply carrying out. No, he must be put to death

on the witness of two individuals. As a matter of fact, we see this same scene played out In the New Testament, when Jesus tells the ones who want to stone the woman who was caught in adultery, when Jesus says, how about the first one who's without sin can cast the first stone? So it has to be on the basis of two witnesses. But the second thing that I take note of is this, and that's what God says that murder does to the land.

What does the shedding of blood do to the land? It pollutes it. That's a strong word, is it not? It makes you think of water that at one point in time would have been worthy of being drank, but all of a sudden now it has pollutants in it. So no matter how refreshing it looks, it will poison you because it's been polluted. That's what murder does to a land. That's what murder does to a nation, is it pollutes it.

And the only way that you can get rid of that is by dealing with the murder. Brothers and sisters, in the land that we live today, I can only imagine how much the blood of the innocent cries out to the ears of God in just about every way possible, because our nation at this point in time has murder so bound in its heart that it carries it out at every turn. And any time that the guilty are dealt with, there is not cries for the innocent, there is only cries for the rights of the guilty. And I can't imagine what that has to do to the heart of God, because he says that bloodshed pollutes the land.

And why are all of these things so important? Because of the very next thing. Because God dwelt among them. We forget that with the ever-present nature of God, that when we walk in sin, when a nation walks in sin, God is walking among them, and he sees all of the pollution. When God came down to see what was going on in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, he didn't do it because he had to, he did it because he chose to.

He did it because he was just. Because God had already walked in the land and seen what was going on there. But it's a perfect picture of exactly what God does within the land, when he sees all of the things that are going on, and how much it hurts his heart, and how much he is restraining his judgment from a land like ours, even right now. And so he goes on to say, I dwell in their midst, therefore you have to deal with the murder that takes place in your land.

Now as we come to chapter 36, it deals once again with inheritance. It says, It says, And they said, The Lord commanded my Lord to give the land by lot to the sons of Israel as an inheritance. And my Lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad, our brother, to his daughter, But if they marry one of the sons of the other tribes of the sons of Israel, their inheritance will be withdrawn from the inheritance of our fathers, and will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they belong. Thus it will be withdrawn from our allotted inheritance.

When the jubilee of the sons of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribes to which they belong. So it will be withdrawn from ours, from the tribe of our fathers, fathers. Moses commanded the sons of Israel, according to the word of the Lord, saying, the tribes of the sons of Joseph are right in their statements. This is what the Lord has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, let them marry whom they wish, only they must marry within the family of the tribe of their father. Thus, no inheritance of the sons of Israel

shall be transferred from tribe to tribe, for the sons of Israel shall each hold to the inheritance of the tribes of his father. Every daughter who comes into possession of an inheritance of any tribe of the sons of Israel shall be wife to one of the family of the tribe of her father, so that the sons of Israel each may possess the inheritance of their fathers. Thus, no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for the tribes of the sons of Israel shall each hold to his own inheritance. And just as the Lord commanded, so the daughters of Zelophehad did. Now, you remember a few chapters ago,

these daughters came to Moses, and they said, hey, here's the thing. Our father died, no sons, we don't get an inheritance, he doesn't get an inheritance. And Moses goes, that's a real pickle. Let me pray about that. And so he prayed about it, and when he prayed about it and sought the Lord, God said, they're right. Give their father's inheritance to them. And it

was a statute from then on that if a father dies without sons, his inheritance goes to his daughters. Pretty earth-shattering thing for God to do in a culture in which women were viewed as property, not property. Owners. But now there's a little bit of an issue from the rest of the tribe. They're like, listen, if they marry somebody from another tribe, we've just lost a portion of our land. And pretty soon

if that keeps happening, no more land. And Moses goes, another pickle. But God has a plan. Here's what these daughters need to do. And any other daughters that are given an inheritance from here on, they should marry within their own tribe. They should marry within their own group, that way the land can remain with the people. That way the land can remain with their tribe.

Now, I always appreciate when there's individuals who can think more deeply than myself. One of those individuals is John Corson. God bless him. He's so good at pulling little spiritual truths out of things. And he said, this is such a fascinating piece of scripture, because that's what he always says. From this, we realize something. We realize that you've got to marry

within your tribe. Because the children of God should not be unequally yoked with the tribes of the world. Now, as a dad who's raising two daughters, I found that to be a really interesting point to be made. Because I always have conversations with my girls. I'm really glad Violet's not in here right now, otherwise she'd be going. I always have conversations with my girls and all of

their friends too, by the way. I don't let anybody escape this. I'm like, girls, what are you looking for in a guy? What's your list? We always talk about Violet, about what's your list of requirements for a guy? Listen, at this point in time, I don't think anybody qualifies for her list. So I'm like, uh, uh, uh, right? Because nobody's good enough. And I'm like, that's right. Nobody's

good enough. I'll choose who's good enough for you. Anyway, that's not true, I don't think. But I'm always like, but remember, at the top of your list has to be one thing and one thing only, because if they're wrong here, they'll be wrong everywhere else. You love Jesus. Because if they don't love Jesus, it doesn't matter any of those other restrictions that you gave. They could be the perfect man in every other way, but if they don't

love Jesus, it will always be wrong. And it will never be in a good position in your life. And so I tell my daughters, both of them, the same thing. The most important thing that you need to find is a man who loves Jesus more than he will ever love you. Because if he will do that, he will always treat you the way that you're supposed to be treated. I tell you that because each of you, in some way, shape, or form, is in contact with somebody

who needs to hear this truth. Who needs to hear that they can never settle for God's second best for their life. They can never settle for anything less than God's absolute best, which will always begin with them being from the same tribe. With them being somebody who loves Jesus with all of their heart. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of marriages would end a whole lot better if both

would start with this same thing. If you don't love Jesus more than me, then we don't even start talking. Now, I'm very early on in this teenage thing, and I know I've got a lot of battles to fight ahead of me. And I am working on getting my spiritual boxing gloves ready for it, because I know how this is going to go. Because I've worked with kids long enough to know I can tell them the

truth until I'm blue in the face. But ultimately, they'll make their own way. And I'm going to make their own decision. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to quit telling them the truth until I'm blue in the face. And the more that kids have somebody besides their mom and dad telling them, you should choose somebody who loves Jesus, the greater chance it is that they'll choose

somebody who loves Jesus. I want as many people who are not me telling them the truth of the word of God as possible. Because eventually, I'm just dad, right? Y'all probably didn't grow up this way, but I did. I grew up eventually just kind of being like, I'm tired of hearing the same thing from my dad all the time. So God surrounded me with other men in my life who told me the exact same thing that my dad told me that weren't my dad. And I'm

so thankful for those men in my life. God wants to use you, not only in your own kids' or grandkids' lives, but also in the lives of all of the other young people in this church who need to hear, from somebody that's not their parents, the truth of what God has to say. Stick with your tribe. Stick with people who love Jesus more than they love you. So that's what they were supposed to do. So they did it. They followed the rules,

and they did what they were supposed to do. It's amazing how that works. And now we come to verse 13 of chapter 36. These are the commandments and the ordinances which the Lord commanded the sons of Israel through Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan opposite Jericho. That's it. We finished the book of Numbers. So I was thinking, as we were finishing the book of Numbers, don't celebrate yet. I'm not done.

And then you can celebrate. I was thinking, so what have we learned from the book of Numbers? So I went back. I know what lesson I feel like God had sticking out in my mind, but I thought, I wonder if what I started off saying we should be paying attention to is what I'll end saying we should be paying attention to. Pretty close. So when I started the book of Numbers, I said that

there were three things that God had told me to do. And I said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Three things that we were going to be looking for in the book of Numbers. I said, first of all, that we were going to be looking for pictures of Christ. I feel like we saw a lot of those in the book of Numbers, did we not? Throughout the Old Testament, they're everywhere, but the book of

Numbers in particular, specifically the rock that followed them through the wilderness, we saw those pictures of Christ. And it was a beautiful thing because it's always fascinating to look back and see how God wove the red thread of redemption throughout the entire Old Testament. So we saw some of those pictures of Christ. Number two, we said that we were going to look for practical lessons of faith and obedience. And I

think that we saw some of those. We saw that when the children of Israel did what God wanted them to do and lived by faith, that God blessed their socks off and amazing things took place. But the third lesson that we said we were going to be looking for was warnings of unbelief and disobedience. and if there was anything that we saw over and over and over and over again was those warnings of unbelief and disobedience.

I will always go back to the title that one of my high school kids put on their scripture summary page for one of the chapters in the book of Numbers and it said, the children of Israel complain, dot, dot, dot, again, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And I was like, that's a really good little title to put on the book of Numbers. And so I thought, okay, those are the things we were looking for. I feel like we saw all those things in the book of Numbers.

So what's the one takeaway? If I was to say, if there's one thing that you should take away from the book of Numbers, what is that one thing that you should take away and say, this is the lesson that I should learn? For me personally, and hopefully for you as well, I feel like the one thing that I learned was, I am the only thing standing between myself and the promised land. I'm the only thing.

I want you to think about it. The children of Israel came all the way to the edge of the promised land, Kadesh Barnea. Boom, we could have been done with the number, the book of Numbers forever ago, right? They came right to the land, the edge of the land of Kadesh Barnea. The 12 spies went in and that's when things went downhill because they came back with a report that said,

the land is awesome, but the people are powerful. We can never win. But what did God promise them? He said, I'm giving you the land. I will go before you and drive out all of the inhabitants. So what was the one thing that kept them from going in and taking the land the first time? Them. The fact that they weren't willing to believe what God had to say. Do you know, the exact same thing is true in my own life.

Anytime I find that I don't live in the fullness of everything that God has for me, I could give a lot of excuses. I could say, well, that was spiritual attack because I don't want to live in the fullness of everything because I have a very real enemy that I face and he hates me and he's doing everything he can to destroy me. That's true. But Jesus is more powerful than the enemy that I face.

Greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. I can say, well, I have this flesh that's so prone to sin. Well, that may be, but his divine power has given us everything that we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us. I can make all of the excuses and those things are true, but Jesus is still there. He's still better than all of those things.

He's still greater than all of those things. So what is the one thing that keeps me from walking in the fullness of the blessing and the promise of God? Me. The artist Pink put it best when she said, I'm my own worst enemy, right? I'm a hazard to myself. So what is the one thing I have to do when I am the one thing that keeps me from living out the promises of God?

I gotta put the flesh to death. I gotta put my focus back on the only thing that can give me victory and start putting myself aside. Start to put away the things of me and start to focus on the things of God. If you will, I have to do exactly what Peter did when he was walking on the water. I have to keep my eyes on Jesus. I love that old hymn. It says, turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in his wonderful face. The things of earth will grow strangely. Dim the light of his glory and grace. Brothers and sisters, we're our own worst enemy, but Jesus is still our greatest advocate. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we come before you and Lord, I do thank you for these wonderful lessons that we've learned in the book of Numbers.

Lord, I thank you that you're gracious to teach us even in the parts of your word that we have to really dig out the truth from. Lord, you're still faithful to it. So Lord, continue to do your work in our hearts and in our lives. Strengthen us in you and may we keep our eyes focused on you. In Jesus' name, amen. Be blessed.