Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20120805.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Numbers: Lessons From Spiritual Casualties And Conquerors
Part XLIX: Trusting God To Have Before Made Room For Our Success
(Numbers 34:1-12 et al.)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    Last Sunday, a Church member expressed to me that our Church is "all we have left of uncorrupted institutions around us," a feeling that is easy to understand in view of current events (as follows):

    (1) The July 30, 2012 nationwide paper USA TODAY, p. 6A, ran as its lead editorial, "Boy Scouts' anti-gay policy spreads the wrong lessons" to assert that since the "Boy Scouts of America . . . will continue . . . excluding gay and lesbian members and leaders," it "has thrown its lot with a dwindling band of groups that place a higher premium on discrimination," for "(m)ost organizations have adopted anti-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation" and "(t)he public barely blinks an eye at openly gay politicians and entertainers."

    The editorial is meant to make the reader think it is futile for him not to accept homosexuality! However, the "Opposing View" op-ed on the same page titled "Scouting takes the tough trail" by Wayne Perry, national president of Boy Scouts of America and Bob Mazzuca, its chief scout executive, asserted, "(T)he majority of the parents we serve do not believe Scouting is the right forum for same-sex attraction to be introduced, discussed or demonstrated in any way." Clearly, the leaders of BSA believe there is a huge divide between the media, government and business "powers-that-be" that promote same-sex marriage and a vast swath of grassroots Americans!

    (2) Nevertheless, the push to promote homosexuality relentlessly continued on the USA TODAY paper's same page: it there cited a Time magazine editorial that told how the late astronaut Sally Ride's lesbian partner of 27 years would not get Sally's Social Security benefits, with the editorial concluding: "We should spend less time puzzling over why Ride remained quietly in the closet and was not an activist for gay rights, and focus our critique on the laws and systems of injustice for federal workers and their same-sex partners."



    (3) This challenge faces us at the local level, too: since last Sunday morning's service, three different professing Christians have spoken to me about three different struggles they were facing in which each party felt he or she was being inundated with evil! It was clear that each struggled with varying degrees of depression, anger and fear over the issues faced!

    Thus, we ask, "If I am tempted to give up' holding to what is right in feeling swamped by evil, what would God suggest?!"

    Need: "I am sorely tempted to give up' living rightly due to seemingly overwhelming, draining evils around me! What would God suggest?"

  1. Numbers 34:1-12 "merely" gives the details of the Promised Land's boundaries, but, in view of FUTURE needs, they were ESSENTIAL in making ROOM for Israel's NATIONAL WELFARE amid EVIL:
    1. Numbers 34:1-12 directed that Israel's southern border run from the south end of the Dead Sea southwest 65 miles to Kadesh Barnea, then turn northwest to meet the stream bed, Wadi el-Arish and follow it to the Mediterranean Sea, which sea would form Israel's western border. Her northern border would run from a point ten miles north of the Phoenician city of Byblos to Hazar Enan 70 miles northeast of Damascus. Israel's eastern border was to curve southwest down from there to the Sea of Galilee, and run along the Jordan River to the Dead Sea. Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh already had their lands east of the Jordan, Numbers 32:33-42; Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 255.
    2. God said this land would be a land "flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8), i. e., a land of "agricultural prosperity," Ibid., p. 112.
    3. Yet, Jean-Pierre Isbouts, The Biblical World: An Illustrated Atlas, p. 154, notes that though Israel's land [as detailed in Numbers 34 minus the Dead Sea shores] was then comprised of steppe to evergreen forest that fit good agricultural production, southern Judah within Israel's southern border was comprised of "gravelly dessert" to "mixed grassland" to "sandy dessert." Ryrie claims: "The wilderness of Judah is a desolate, barren area between the hill country and the Dead Sea," Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, footnote to 1 Samuel 23:14.
    4. However, God in His foreknowledge INTENTIONALLY included this grand exception to a land "flowing with milk and honey" for Israel's territory to make room for her national welfare amid evil:
      1. Four hundred years after Israel took Canaan (Ibid., p. 2023-2025), and Israel's first king, Saul had ceased following God, and He had sent Samuel to anoint David as king (1 Sam. 16:1-13a), God began to bless David and to withdraw His blessing from Saul so that Israel's people might start to follow David in place of Saul without costing Israel a nationally destructive civil war, 1 Sam. 16:13b-14.
      2. Saul noticed this shift in blessing (1 Samuel 18:7-9), so he repeatedly, wickedly tried to slay David, 1 Samuel 19-20.
      3. Meanwhile, David endeared himself to the people of Israel, leading them in victory after victory over the Philistines, 1 Samuel 18:16.
      4. Eventually, Saul's aggression became so formidable, David saw he had to leave Saul's realm of influence to stay alive, 1 Samuel 20.
      5. Thus, David initially fled to Philistine territory (1 Samuel 21), but tensions with this foe of Israel led him back to Israel, 1 Sam. 22:1a.
      6. God's prophet, Gad then told David to stay in Judah, 1 Samuel 22:5, for with many in Israel seeking to side with David (1 Samuel 22:3), and with God blessing David over Saul, it was God's will that David not only STAY ALIVE from Saul's efforts to kill him, but also to STAY in JUDAH accessible to the people of God!
      7. In this way, Judah's BADLANDS in southern Israel, sparsely populated land David knew WELL from his days as a shepherd boy there (1 Samuel 16:11), served as an ideal hiding place for him and for those who kept crossing over to his side from Saul's realm! Ryrie adds that "David and his men used the many ravines and caves in this area as refuge from Saul." (Ibid., Ryrie)
      8. 1 Chronicles 12:1, 15, 22 et al. reports that all during this time, people in Israel were daily leaving Saul's realm to follow David!
  2. Even MORE important, Israel's borders were ESSENTIAL for Israel's FUTURE SPIRITUAL WELFARE amid EVIL (as follows):
    1. Twice in Judah's badlands, David had opportunity to kill Saul in revenge, but he learned in these trials to wait upon God instead of slaying Saul himself in unbiblical revenge, 1 Samuel chs. 24, 26.
    2. Once David was sorely tempted to avenge himself against Nabal, a southern Judah sheep owner who had culturally demeaned him in return for David's helpful service, but David heeded the plea of Nabal's wife, Abigail, to let God punish Nabal , 1 Samuel 25.
    3. In his ten year flight from Saul in the badlands of Judah, a number of David's psalms reveal his growth in relationship with God. (cf. Psalm 18, 34, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59 and 63; Ibid., B. K. C., O. T., p. 450)
    4. Thus, the trial of southern Judah's badlands and a pursuing evil Saul became God's crucible to develop David into Israel's upright king!
Application: May we (1) trust in Christ as Savior to become a child of God, John 3:16. (2) If facing pressing evil, (a) may we recall God's supply of Judah's "badlands" for Israel's good, and (b) look for God's similar foreordained supply for us amid our trials!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 As has so often occurred, the Lord applied this message in my life in the midst of its formation, so I share its illustration with you:

(1) I faced a personal trial on Monday going into Tuesday, and when I arrived at the office on Tuesday to begin forming this sermon, I could not get the trial issue out of my mind. Thus, I followed God's past precedents in such cases, believing He wanted me to apply the Numbers 34:1-12 passage I was set to study to the trial issue itself!

(2) I thus finished the first draft of the introduction and sermon pages, and was about to start on this conclusion section, wondering what I would write, when the phone rang. It was a party facing a trial!

(3) In later reviewing my trial and the trial the party who had called me faced, I saw a common theme in both cases. Each trial had initially been spurred by "legalistic false spirituality," the great plague in evangelical circles where believers substitute what God's Word teaches with human reasoning that sabotages a true godly walk!

The Apostle Paul countered this error, writing that Timothy should avoid "fables and endless genealogies" (1 Timothy 1:4 KJV), that he avoid "man-made supplements to the law of God . . . (and) genealogical narratives that were largely fictitious," Wm. Hendriksen, Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles (NTC), 1974, p. 58. Such words are so applicable today: many Christians are engrossed in books, lesson materials, publications, pamphlets, CDs, etc. that talk all around Bible truth but do not actually present Bible truth itself, or that give partially true insight along with man-authored "principles" outside the realm of God's written Word! In the end, such works only hurt human institutions, a fact I see occurring more and more.

(4) I now see these trials as "southern Judah badlands flight from Saul" events where the Lord permitted them to occur to drive me to be committed anew to preach His Word, only His Word, and nothing but His written Word! I have become all the more committed to heeding 2 Timothy 4:1-2 in light of 1 Timothy 1:4, and even more opposed to getting occupied with anything but the Word of God!



May we trust in God, knowing HE is at work to USE life's TRIALS as a "badlands chased by Saul" STAGING to GROW us in Christ! May we recognize that work, RECOGNIZING God's BIBLICAL LESSONS involved, and APPLY them in our lives!