Month: September 2013

America is again facing a new wave of returnee servicemen who have been serving in fields of conflict. They bring home with them some challenges. To illustrate this, I clipped this out of the Buffalo News from a few months ago about this College year in New York schools:

“When Dan Frontera enrolled in graduate school at the University at Buffalo, he found himself yelling at two fellow students, one reeking of alcohol, who browsed Facebook instead of listening to the lecture. During Frank Grillo’s first week at Daemen College, he stormed out of class after hearing two young women complain about getting mud on their Ugg boots and remembering his boots being “completely covered in blood.” And Matt Ziemendorf usually counts how many people are in the room and identifies all the exits as he enters classrooms at Niagara University. These young men are a different type of college student. Veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan increasingly are turning to higher education as they leave the military and confront an economy still rebounding from recession. They’re often older than other students, and frequently have spouses and children. They’re not interested in partying, and many try to finish their degrees as quickly as possible. Some also struggle with mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD… Veterans are generally more respectful of professors and more focused on their work than many other students, said Andrew Overfield, coordinator of veterans services at Canisius. Administrators at other local colleges agreed. That discipline, Overfield said, helps veterans finish school as fast as they can. … But veterans, despite their maturity, often have trouble with the transition from the service to academia. Many grapple with the loss of the military’s strict routine. “The thing I struggled with for the longest time was, you no longer have your senior NCOs and stuff like that giving you orders,” Ziemendorf said, referring to noncommissioned officers. “You’re kind of figuring this out on your own.”…Jason Gilliland at Buffalo State and Frontera, who’s now the veterans affairs coordinator at ECC. [These men] are both pursuing master’s degrees in the higher education field at Buffalo State, so as they help students navigate the transition from deployment to academia, they are going through the same thing. … Being a veteran himself, Gilliland can understand a veteran with PTSD “hitting the deck” upon hearing construction noises on campus, and can point him to a place where he can get help. And being a student himself, Frontera can understand what it’s like to be surrounded by younger college students who are nothing like you.” (By Luke Hammill on July 15, 2013).

Returning veterans often have many hurdles to overcome, and some who hear this lesson today remember the experience all too well from their own past. When Stephen E. Ambrose wrote his book, Band of Brothers, he featured the awkward return to civilian life at the end of the work, because it was part of the war. The men didn’t return to a new life, it was the re-acquisition of the old life by an entirely changed young man that was often so difficult. Our lesson today is about the same kind of problem, albeit from a short and bloody conflict – not a sustained campaign far away. Returning veterans pose special problems. Yet, it is not only about them. It is also about the expressions of GRATITUDE after a time of God’s unusual provision and pronounced protection – and we ALL need that lesson!

I mention this because if you look into the text of Scripture, you will find the narrative of Numbers 31 contains two distinct stories: 1) the command of God and execution of a raid on Midian, and 2) the return of the raiders and the purification and offerings from the spoils. In our last lesson, we handled the first part of the story – the stirring account of a battle that forced us to face an issue that was uncomfortable – that God has the absolute right to act on behalf of His people and His plan in pronounced ways to bring about His plan. Today we face the second half of the story, in which we must deal with the aftermath of the bloody battle – including the dividing of the spoils and the required offerings to the Lord. The response to the battle was as telling a story and the execution of it. In some ways, the story was similar to what an allied WWII veteran may tell about his service. Neither were wars of personal vendetta, and neither group of returnees came back wringing their hands with glee at the hurt they put on another people group. The Biblical raid was executed in obedience to God’s command, and the chief expression of returnees was relief and thanksgiving to God. That is the story for our lesson today.

Remember, the people didn’t fight to prove anything. They didn’t fight to resolve any leftover feelings in them. They may have had feelings about the Midianites, but the fighting came about at the behest of the Lord, relayed through the instruction of Moses. They marched out with a priest, with holy silver trumpets of the Tabernacle, and with the confidence they were following God’s holy command. With these tools of mind and heart, they were invited by God to participate in a powerful victory. Swiftly the tides of war turned into the fortune of spoils and they returned with arms full of loot – their tunics still stained with the blood of the battle and their skin still covered with the dust and grime of the swift passage through the desert sands. Arriving at the camp, they were relieved and exhausted… but they were not allowed to drop in their tents and run into the arms of their wives and children. Something else came first. There was a time of healing, purifying and worshipful giving. They needed to understand a truth that we need to revisit…

Key Principle: The highest calling for a follower of God is obedient and repeated dedication to the Lord – everything else comes second.

The WAR was a step of OBEDIENCE. Would the RESPONSE be one of GRATITUDE and REDEDICATION?

Before the embraces of loved ones, before sitting around the campfire to share the story of the battle with their children – there had to be planned “down time” alone with God. There was a time of rededication, rest and re-orientation. There was time for celebrating with the comrades in arms, and the quiet thanksgiving of men who returned from a battle whole, along with their brothers and fellow soldiers. The re-entry to society was planned and prescribed by God. The nightmares of war needed to find a place inside of them to rest in their memory – and God was prepared to help them deal with it all. God never calls people to do things He won’t help them through.

Drop your eyes into the scene of the returnees, and listen to the speech they heard outside the camp…

Purification Instructions from Eleazar:

Numbers 31:21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is what is required by the law that the Lord gave Moses: 22 Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead 23 and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water. 24 On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp.”

We pick up the story with the High Priest of Israel telling the warriors what to do with the spoils they were carrying home. The remnants of war – its ribbons, weaponry and its victory spoils – all needed a place to be laid before the Lord and cleansed, both physically and spiritually. It was required of a warrior to take the things from his hands and place them before the Lord for cleansing. The passage offers three important principles of cleansing the fighters and their victory spoils.

There were three “Principles of Cleansing” found here:

1. Required Consecration: Cleansing wasn’t just a good idea – it was a God-ordained and revealed idea (31:21). The best surgeon isn’t ready simply because of training – there must be scrubbing. The idea that a fully prepared and fully qualified person should be given time to set aside after a difficult, even harrowing experience is a God idea. Preparation must be matched by periodic purification – and that wasn’t optional. It isn’t just qualification that makes one eligible to effectively serve God today – but purification. Even as a believer and follower of Messiah, I must recognize that purity in my walk will be tarnished while passing through the streets of a fallen world. Jesus told His Disciples that periodic “foot washing” was still absolutely essential – even for those who left the house fully clean that morning.

Two essential truths regarding purification must always be regarded. First, the means of purification has always been exclusively available by God’s provision – God alone can declare me clean by the means that God alone provided. I cannot earn clean-ness before the Holy One any way but through His provided cleansing agent. Second, the application of cleansing has always been personal and deliberate – I alone am responsible to apply what God offers to cleanse my life. No well-meaning parent can do it. No friend can act on my behalf to apply it. Just as God is solely responsible for the provision; I am solely responsible for the application of what He provided. God gave the washing solution at great cost to Himself; I must apply it carefully to my stained life.

Look again at our returning warriors in Numbers. They went through a time of slaughter. It changed them. Killing, even when done for a just purpose before God, was never easy. Ask the man who pulls the switch before the convict who has been sentenced to death – killing is hard. It is supposed to be hard. In war, we must move against compassion, against humanity itself. It was a necessary affront, because it was in obedience to God’s command – but it was still hard. The return of the veteran warrior required “down time” in a “compression tank-like” experience before returning to home and family. The warrior needed to get clean before God and men in the quiet of the desert outside the camp.

2. Careful Scrutiny: The goods brought from the battle had to be heat-purified and then water-purified. (31:22-23). Some things needed to be destroyed and smelted. Shapes that were inappropriate for the camp of God’s people would need to be reduced to liquid and re-formed. All of the spoils would need heating to eliminate any dangerous bacteria or germs that could harm God’s people. Items unable to be heated must be thoroughly washed (31:23b). The warriors needed to detoxify their implements of war and the spoils they brought back. While they did so, they had time to let the events sink into their hearts.

The point is that interacting and ingesting the goods of the world is a dangerous proposition. We are so familiar with handling dangerous things of the world, that we have become glib about their volatility and hazard to our lives. We flip on a TV and nonchalantly laugh at stained humor about things as sacred as marriage, honesty and truth. We watch routinely as people engage in marriage activities outside the holy bonds of that commitment. In war, the rules change. The strong defeat the weak – and not always the right win. Even when they do, the behaviors of warriors, amped up on testosterone and the taste of blood, is not always exemplary. The language of the barracks often reflects the tensions of war.

For God’s servant, the time for inspection allowed them to settle down and look at everything they returned with from that experience, and take the time to allow God to cleanse it, stain by awful stain. I don’t want to stretch the point. There was dirt and germ removal – but that wasn’t all there was too the cleaning. It included scrutiny – looking carefully for any impurity.

3. Personal Responsibility: With the command of God, there was one week of “down time” for each warrior, during the thorough cleansing of clothing, implements and body before resuming their post (31:24). Time alone in intimate inspection and re-consecration was interwoven here. The purification of one’s own life was one’s own responsibility. No one else knew what was hidden.

All three principles added up to one important truth: Warriors need a space between the battle and the resumption of daily life. The lack of that space will make the re-entry harder. The warrior may not sense the need, and anxious to return, they will plow back into the daily grind. God COMMANDED it, simply because the warrior wasn’t always conscious of the needs they had – and they were entirely unfamiliar with the corrupting issues of bacteria and germs. Don’t so fixate of the physical cleaning, however, and forget that God included in the command the mental, emotional and spiritual needs they carried home with them. As Pastor Warren Wiersbe once quipped: “God didn’t just want CONQUERING SOLDIERS, he wanted CLEAN SOLDIERS – He always does”.

The Tribute Offering

The text moved past the men and their cleansing, and then reminded us that in every blessing, no matter how hard fought to obtain, there must be recognition that we have what we have because our Lord has made it possible.

Numbers 31:25 The Lord said to Moses, 26 “You and Eleazar the priest and the family heads of the community are to count all the people and animals that were captured. 27 Divide the spoils equally between the soldiers who took part in the battle and the rest of the community. 28 From the soldiers who fought in the battle, set apart as tribute for the Lord one out of every five hundred, whether people, cattle, donkeys or sheep. 29 Take this tribute from their half share and give it to Eleazar the priest as the Lord’s part. 30 From the Israelites’ half, select one out of every fifty, whether people, cattle, donkeys, sheep or other animals. Give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle.” 31 So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.

These verses offer three “Principles of Tribute”:

The children of Israel just fought a Holy War – a war directed by God for His own purposes. The taxing of tribute was the required recognition of God’s goodness in the victory – a “tithe against the blessing”, if you will. Like the “Shelmim Offering” (Thanksgiving Offering) of Leviticus 2, it was a “thank you” to the Lord, that was expected by Him, and prescribed by His Word.

1. Accounting: First, an inventory needed to be taken by the priests accompanied by tribal leaders of all animals captured (31:25-26). This included both inspection and counting. Any diseased animals would need to be disposed, while a strict counting of the whole size of the material blessing was authenticated. The people doing this were priest, but they were accompanied by the watchful eye of the secular leaders. Following a new material acquisition, there was an inspection that was publicly executed and entirely verified. Getting the material blessing wasn’t the end – it was the beginning of taking the responsibility to steward well. That responsibility needed transparency, so the accounting was swift, accurate and public.

2. Dividing: Second, the spoils needed to be divided in two – half for the fighters, and the other half to be divided over the families of Israel (31:27). Clearly those who fought got a higher amount of the spoils, but those who were not able also were blessed by the victory. Some people are enabled to stand on the front line – but those who no longer can, should also be recognized for their value in the struggle. Those who did not fight were able to be a part of the support system, and needed to be blessed in the rewards as well. The prize was to the nation, not simply to the army.

3. Giving: Third, soldiers were to have an offering based on 1:500 “man to animal” ratio – given to the priestly families – the Cohenim (31:28-29). The animal tribute among the non-fighting populace was by a 1:50 ratio, given to the Levite families (31:30). The whole system that God set up was to work together. God’s people needed those who operated the Tabernacle, and those who cared for the administration of God’s work in their midst. This was a state religion, given at a unique time in the life of a certain people. Yet, the principle of giving place to the operations of ministry is elsewhere validated in Scripture. No nation can long endure that pits itself at odds with God’s stated desires for man – and pushes God’s people to the periphery.

A nation must recognize the place of God. Our forefathers knew that in the open praise of Thanksgiving. The History Channel reminds: “In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.”

Today the holiday continues without the “guest of honor” in most of our public institutions, as American shrink in fear of lawsuits from secularists that threaten every imaginable venue because they have been forced to hear about a God they don’t believe in. What bothers them is NOT that they have to hear of a “god” they believe is false – for they show little impatience with public recalling of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny (and I suppose they don’t believe in them either). What bothers them is the WE still believe that God is real, just like our forefathers did. That belief seems to be at the center of their disdain. It bugs them…

We don’t come to church to bemoan culture – even when we know that culture is desperately looking for a replacement for their Creator. We come to be among those, planted in places all around the globe, who WORSHIP the King.

• We will not be stingy, because God has been so gracious and blessed us in abundance.

• We will not be silent, for God has given us a reason to sing.

• We will not be angry, for despite the changes in our culture, God has promised at the end of days to wipe every tear from our eyes.

• We will not be timid, for a God so great deserves our full throated praise for Who He is and all He has done.

Our nation that rewards with greatest income those who can play a ball game, but cannot afford more than minimum wage for one who works with our children and our elderly speaks with little moral authority. Our God, who cares for us “from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same” beckons us to praise Him with our giving. The Gospel must go forth, and we will use the wealth He has given us to make that happen. The poor and the needy must be cared for, and we will not withhold our help. Let the nation grow cold – and let the church be the church. Let us look and act with generosity and charity!

The Inventory and Tribute Offering

As we continue with our story of the returnees, we get an inventory…

Numbers 31:32 The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 33 72,000 cattle, 34 61,000 donkeys 35 and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man. 36 The half share of those who fought in the battle was: 337,500 sheep, 37 of which the tribute for the Lord was 675; 38 36,000 cattle, of which the tribute for the Lord was 72; 39 30,500 donkeys, of which the tribute for the Lord was 61; 40 16,000 people, of whom the tribute for the Lord was 32. 41 Moses gave the tribute to Eleazar the priest as the Lord’s part, as the Lord commanded Moses. 42 The half belonging to the Israelites, which Moses set apart from that of the fighting men— 43 the community’s half—was 337,500 sheep, 44 36,000 cattle, 4530,500 donkeys 46 and 16,000 people. 47 From the Israelites’ half, Moses selected one out of every fifty people and animals, as the Lord commanded him, and gave them to the Levites, who were responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle.

The real question was: How will they meet the continuing needs of ministry? God’s answer was to organize ministry and its support through the people.

This section provided three “Principles of Support” of God’s ministry among the people:

1. The first part of the narrative offered the totals of each category (31:32-35), followed by the divided half to the soldiers (31:36), and the amount taken in tribute (31:37-40). It was one thing to learn about the ratios, it was another thing to actually take the amount that was to be offered and carefully separate out the gift. The theory of giving is only helpful if followed by the ACTION of giving.

Let’s think seriously about the idea of GENEROSITY for a moment…People often think that their giving would change if they had MORE to give. Yet, the truth is the majority of the giving is done by those who have little. Pastor Bobby Scobey related a story:

“Don’t say you would give if only you had something to give. There was a farmer who asked his neighbor, “If you had a million dollars, would you give me half of it?” The second fellow was amazed at the question and replied, “Of course, I would do that in a minute.” The questioner persisted, “If you had cars, would you give me one of them?” The friend said, “I can’t believe you asked that. Since we are such good friends, sure; you know I would give you one.” Third question: “If you had two hogs, would you give me one?” The other guy said, “Shoot, man, you know I’ve got two hogs.”

God is honored by what I give, not what I intend to give. Theoretical sacrifice wasn’t what God instructed Israel – actual hard numbers are given to prove that point!

2. The second part of the narrative detailed the part that went to the Cohenim (priests) that was carefully given by Moses in accordance with the Lord’s instruction (31:41). God called out certain men to serve as the intercessor between the people and God – and they and their families needed to be cared for by the people in the process. They were to lead the people in worship, but were, in another sense, dependent upon the people for sustenance. It isn’t wrong for God’s people to shoulder that responsibility – it is appropriate.

I am not bucking for a raise, here – just commenting on the truth. I have had the fortunate circumstance of watching God pour blessing on my life – material, emotional and spiritual. I know some of the finest people this old planet has ever witnessed. I am surrounded by blessing! At the same time, it is my responsibility to faithfully represent the Word of God. Our staff gets wonderful support from our flock – and that is the way it is supposed to be. God has honored your sacrifices and blessed our work together because of your obedience. We all do this ministry together!

3. The last part of this text shows how the animals were the numbers divided among the people (31:42-46) and the amounts that were given in tribute offering to the Levites (31:47). In addition to caring for those who interceded for the people – God also devised a system of caring for both the physical operations of the worship center, and a way to spread out across the camp those who could serve God by serving the people – the Levitical formula. God provided increase, and the people needed to make sure the needs of those who sacrificed a portion of inheritance in this life were cared for as well.

He does the same in our ministry today! Just as you care for the staff, so there are missionaries serving in far flung places in the name of Christ. They, like Levites of old, have traded a land inheritance to be those who work for the Lord in the midst of a tribe that owns the land on which they labor. They live in faraway lands, and miss their families and their friends – all for the cause of the Gospel. Why? In Heaven, French people will stand beside you and remind you that your obedience in giving provided a man or woman who gave them the Gospel. You will meet Cambodians, Africans, Arabs, Europeans, Asians, and many others who were reached by the support you helped with! God blessed us to be a blessing to others. It is our rightful tribute.

A Thanksgiving Offering Added

The final part of the passage displays what happens when people have faced crisis, and seen God deliver blessing.

Numbers 31:48 Then the officers who were over the units of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—went to Moses 49 and said to him, “Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one is missing. 50 So we have brought as an offering to the Lord the gold articles each of us acquired—armlets, bracelets, signet rings, earrings and necklaces—to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord.” 51 Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted from them the gold—all the crafted articles. 52 All the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds that Moses and Eleazar presented as a gift to the Lord weighed 16,750 shekels.(about 420 pounds) 53 Each soldier had taken plunder for himself. 54 Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gold from the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and brought it into the tent of meeting as a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord.

Finally, there are three “Principles of Blessing” in the account.

1. First, there was recognition of God’s goodness to them – rejoicing over the protection of God (31:48-49). When the officers looked carefully at the roster of the returnees – they saw it clearly. God brought the entire army back… not one of their men was lost! They were amazed at God’s protection, and overjoyed at His grace!

Have you thanked God for the many times in the last months you have been spared from harm? Every day there are those who wake up and dream of harming our nation and wounding our people. Yet, God has been good and offered protection. Diligent men and women serve our country in a variety of services, and God uses them to protect us. Police, rescue workers, firemen and many others stand by to help if an emergency strikes. There has never been a people, since the beginning of history, that has been so thoroughly guarded and protected by agencies as ours. Yet, we complain. We act as though we deserve peace, prosperity and stability. Have you thanked God for the protection that we have enjoyed?

2. Recognition that is REAL is followed by RESPONSE that is measureable – responsive offerings for God’s goodness (31:50). The result of their collective joy was an offering to God – not compulsory, but as an overflow of their heart! God protected them, but God also showered them with good gifts -and they wanted to give them back to Him!

Let me ask you directly: If God dropped a large amount of money on you right now, would you find it hard to give to Him an offering from it? How quickly and steadfastly do you own the things He provides for you? Isn’t it just possible that God is not placing more in your hands because He knows you would squander it on things that don’t honor Him – selfish pleasures that don’t advance His Kingdom at all?

These men looked that the wealth they accumulated. They recalled the men that lay in the camp, fallen in battle and dispossessed of all their earthly goods. Facing death helps us sort out priorities. The men saw that God saved them, and God blessed them – and no one had to convince them of God’s goodness. No one had to beg them to give. They volunteered.

Let me say something that could sting just a little bit. Those who see God as He is, and themselves as they are – should be inclined to generosity in giving. When we truly recognize the depth of our own sinfulness and the size of the Lord’s gift to us – we see His marvelous generosity toward us. We know of His liberality. It challenges us to respond well.

3. Reception of Freewill Offering and placement before God (31:51-54). The priests took the offering that was given and laid it before God. Mere Midianite trinkets took on the sweet smell of offerings to the Most High God. The people rejoiced, and God was pleased.

As little as I normally speak about giving and generosity, I am still a preacher, and the subject is dangerous in our hands…In fact, it reminds me to warn you with a story:

A barber in a small town was busy cutting hair one day when the local cop walked in to get a haircut. And the barber was feeling a bit generous that day, so he said to the cop… “Since you do such a good job protecting us, and watching over us… today’s haircut is free.” The cop said he appreciated that, and the next day when the barber showed up at his shop, there were a dozen donuts waiting for him. In walks a local florist. The barber tells him how much he appreciates all the work that he has done around town, planting bushes and flowers and making the town look real nice, so he gives him a free haircut. The next day, the barber shows up at his shop and there are a dozen flowers waiting for him. In walks the local preacher, the barber tells him how he is feeling generous that day, and how much he appreciates all his hard work with the children and taking care of the needs of the people, so the preacher gets a free haircut. The next the barber shows up at his shop, and there are a dozen preachers waiting there for him. (Taken from sermon central illustrations).

Seriously, we have followed the Israelites from their beginnings to nearly the end of Moses’ life as we have studied together – and very few times did we end this way – with the people at peace and God pleased with them. What did it take? It took OBEDIENCE. It took practical DEDICATION to what God called them to accomplish. It took understanding the truth….

The highest calling for a follower of God is obedient and repeated dedication to the Lord – everything else comes second.

Idolatry is the single most talked about problem in all of Scripture – but you don’t hear it that much in the western church. When we do mention it, we picture some primitive tribe far away, not people we see every day. According to the Bible, most people are idolaters. Now, I readily admit that in the modern world of the west, most do not think of themselves as idolaters – but in the Biblical terminology that is exactly how they would be described. This isn’t a new problem, but one that accompanies the ages. It was John Calvin who wrote: “Everyone of us is, even from our mother’s womb a master craftsman of idols.”

We may not build elaborate temples and construct vast sacrificial platforms. We may not bow to a statue of some hideous creature or sumptuous human form, but each of us serves something with vigilant allegiance – even if it is ourselves. The Biblical definition for idolatry is “anything that takes God’s rightful place in our life as it regards our hungers, choices and desires.” For some it is money, for others an inordinate craving for the love of another. For some it is surely power. Some yearn deeply for success and will cast aside any principle for the perks of material gain. For some the driving hunger is fame. For some, every waking moment seems to be a search for sexual gratification. Some make a god of their career, while others exalt their body to serve the god of image and strength. To a great many in our culture, the god of comfort and pleasure demands our highest allegiance. I have to agree with Kyle Idelman who wrote: “Behind every sin struggle that you and I have is a false god that is winning the war in our lives.”

We must be careful not to allow other things to come between us and God. The Bible warns us in many places concerning this – but there is another “twist” on idolatry I want you to notice – our modern attempts to re-shape God into something that is more acceptable to our sense of fairness and justice. We began to see this in the last chapter, where we noted the “modern clash of culture” we have with the text of Scripture regarding the judicial responsibility of women (Numbers 30). We noted the unchanging principles of God’s Word are sometimes openly offensive to modern sensibilities, and that in our day the church is quickly succumbing to the need to be loved by the world rather than firmly committed to holding the treasure of the Creator’s words above all else. If you have been listening, you know the media LOVES any church that wants to update and re-think the Bible’s most clear statements to conform with the morals of modernity.

I don’t want to obfuscate and sound so theoretical I skirt needed discomfort, so let me say it plainly: Our culture is at war with the God of the Bible as He is presented in the text. They don’t WANT HIM. IF they want any god (and many do not), they want to be able to shape what He cares about. They want to tell Him what the Bible SHOULD say. They want to re-make the rules on marriage, finance, sexual behavior, honesty – all of it. The parts of the Bible about God’s love are no problem. The problem is all the other things God says… God the Sovereign is being demoted to God the elected… and there is a reason.

Many Christians simply don’t understand that from the opening line, the Bible is deeply offensive to the modern sensibilities of our culture. Its pages open with a simple claim: “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.” If that claim is true – if God DID in fact create all that is and then defined its purpose (as the rest of Genesis 1 claims) – everything finds its real meaning and definition in Him. He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth. Even more offensive is the notion that in such a case, God isn’t forced to act according to modern man’s ever flexing sense of fairness… a truly burning offense to modern man. Our culture cries out for a creator that can be shaped! Our nation seeks a god that blesses us without questioning our gluttony for endless pleasures and encourages us without challenging our flexible morality and unrestrained perversions.

A God that pre-existed the material world, a God that created all things– is fundamentally at odds with the gods of modern men. Why? If God created, He was not a creation of good men – He is the author, not the tale. If God created, He has by definition a Sovereign right to be recognized as Who He is. He cannot be forced into rules that His creation attempts to subject Him to, nor can He be shaped by men’s thinking, for we were shaped by His hands. He is the Untamable God – the writer of a story in which we find ourselves characters.

Key Principle: God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.

Let me challenge you with a story from the Bible that will help us see even our own temptation to shape God. Like the last lesson – this one challenges our modern definitions of fair and just, and forces us to rethink how our minds have been pressed into the world’s mold. There is much in the passage, so we will deal with it in two parts – this is the first installment.

Part One: The Last Battle for Moses

The first half of the chapter is constructed as a record of four scenes:

• God commands Moses
• Moses passes marching orders to leaders
• Israel’s army routs Midian
• Moses meets the returnees

This is a story about a war. It is the plan and execution of a surprise attack, initiated by God against a devious enemy that had caused problems in the past for Israel. It is a tough story to read – with butchery and blood of men and women, and the enslaving of children. It is a frank look at the rugged and brutal existence of God’s people long ago… and it is not easy to seriously contemplate.

Scene One – God to Moses:

It opens with God talking to Moses. Take a moment and pull in your focus to listen to a short and direct command from God given millennia ago:

Numbers 31:1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

The opening line of the story is no doubt a summary of a longer conversation, but in the short two sentences we see the revelation of three facts:

First, God wasn’t willing to let the terrible abuse of His people by devious men who tried to destroy God’s plan in and through them remain unanswered.

When we read “take vengeance” as Christians, we are perhaps uncomfortable with a kind of call from God, since it seems contrary to the call of God to us – and it meant the brutal killing of human beings. Don’t you feel a reaction? Perhaps it will help if you recall the event that God was referencing in his command, and see if it puts this command in context. Numbers 25:1 reported: “While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. 2 For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel. 4 The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” 5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor.”

While observing this first fact – that God wouldn’t let the abuse go – it occurs to me that four ideas surface that we should take a few minutes to explore on the way to helping us make sense of this command of God for vengeance:

• God called Moses in with the plan to pay back Midian for their sin. This wasn’t a political stunt, and it wasn’t done with a malicious heart on the part of Moses. Vengeance is God’s alone – and we are not to cook up ways to hurt people who hurt us. Moses was acting as the hand of God in a specific situation – and we aren’t Moses. We don’t have the history of the same kind of communion with God and don’t have the same responsibilities before God as he did.

• We don’t recognize how hurt the people of Israel were concerning the resultant plague that decimated them, killing 24,000 of their family and friends (Numbers 25:9) directly because of that sin. These deceivers felt like cloaked terrorists, and the event felt like a 9/11 cataclysm to the people. America WANTED to fight after they were attacked. After Pearl Harbor, there was no ground swell of a peacenik American. When people are hurt and victimized, their sense of JUSTICE overwhelms them. God’s call probably satisfied many people who lost loved ones that were casualties of another’s misdeeds. Some of you may be keen to ask: “Wait! These didn’t die in an attack – the plague of the Lord took their lives. That isn’t the same thing!” (I want to address this, but I will do so later in the lesson).

• We don’t recognize how deeply God abhors those who ensnare His people in idolatry and licentious living. To God, these tribesmen were like an ancient form of a street “drug pusher” – offering something free and getting people “hooked” – while steadily “milking” their life from them. If you have ever felt that there was a special place in Hell reserved for such people, you know a bit of the outrage of God over what they were doing. He HATES the deliberate perversion of a child. He DETESTS the beckoning of the tempter who creates enslaving pornography and traffics in human flesh of those held in bondage. He LOATHES the voices of those who arrogantly challenge His right to keep His people distinct from filth.

• We must recognize that God worked with Israel in unique ways in the past in regards to national direction, and this view of “carnal warfare” is not the same in our nation and time in history. We follow a chosen value at Grace called “Non-resistance”. We are not pacifists, and do not believe that Jesus’ commands to individual believers translate to national instructions, but we do believe there is a profound difference in the way we should handle what our forefathers called “carnal strife” – fancy terms for “national wars”. Non-resistance in our doctrinal statement means essentially that we do not believe that our nation or our church are to involve themselves in battles that are designed to “carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them” as stated in Numbers 31:3. Serving in the country’s armed forces is not a problem for us – but it would be if our country tried to execute a war claiming it was the “arm of God”. In our time, we believe there is a distinction between the Kingdom “not of this world” that we serve, and the earthly kingdom to which we show allegiance as a matter of obedience to Romans 13 and those who are in authority. Our movement came from a time in European history when people were killing each other in the name of Jesus – and we don’t believe in that. We can and will defend our national interests as loyal citizens, but we will not defend the nation claiming it is “the command of the Lord” over another people. We make a distinction between our faith Kingdom and our earthly Kingdom that ancient Israel did not need to make.

God wouldn’t let it go, but there is more in this little reading of Numbers 31:1-2.

Second, Moses needed to care for the response and not let it pass to his successor. There would be plenty of fighting that Joshua needed to contend with – but God wanted this chapter finished by Moses’ administration. It wasn’t wise to place the clean-up operations on the shoulder of the new guy. As we slip out of a long-held role of leadership, sometimes we are tempted to “let things go” and not press to the final tape with our best efforts. It would have been easy to see how Moses could have felt it best not to “re-open a can of worms” and rather “let sleeping dogs lie” – the laissez faire (“leave it be”, literally “let do”) form of leadership. Because of that temptation, and because God wanted to balance the scales of judgment, He simply stepped in and instructed that Moses clean up this problem.

Third, this was the LAST big assignment Moses needed to face as leader. He would be “retired” after this war. Moses was probably looking forward to resting from the weight of the office, and since many of his friends were already gone, he probably knew it was time for a new leader. From what we can tell, the words of God didn’t threaten him, they comforted him.

Scene Two – Moses to Men:

There are more than two verses to consider in the story! Keep reading…The instruction firmly planted in his ears, Moses drew the people together and faithfully reported to him all that God told him to say:

Numbers 31:3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel.

He told them to get ranked, dressed and ready for battle. He delivered the reason, just as God gave it to him – it was God’s idea, not his. The objective was given by the Most High, but the plan needed to be executed in their hands.

Scene Three – Men to War:

Gathered and ready, off they went to attack as they were told to do. They were strong physically, and walked with an emotional certainty knowing they were following the Lord’s command.

Numbers 31:6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling. 7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Moses SENT them, but Eleazar the High Priest ACCOMPANIED them with articles from the Tabernacle – the silver trumpets used to call them to war from its doorway. The men apparently attacked the Midianite encampment with complete surprise – and the slaughter was thorough. Every fighting man of that tribal encampment was killed. Five chieftains were encamped there – though the text does not inform us why they were all in that one camp. It looks like a “pow-wow” was interrupted at just the right time!

Did you notice that Balaam the prophet was also with them? At the end of his time with Chief Balak, Numbers 24:25 recorded: “Then Balaam arose and departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.” What was he STILL DOING IN THE MIDIANITE CAMP? Truthfully, we do not know. It could be that he returned to his tent at the end of Numbers 24 with the intent of going home, but decided to stay around and see how the whole thing worked out. Some have even suggested that he set out to return to Mesopotamia, but was again summoned by tribesmen that wished to hire his services. 2 Peter 2:15 certainly left the door open to that when it recorded his legacy as: “forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.” I cannot prove it, but I suspect that he found himself seduced by the sensual cult that pervaded the camp of Midian, and he wasn’t willing to go back home.

Because I feel it inappropriate, I will not graphically remind you of the cultic practices, except to say they were sensual and orgiastic. The women captured by Israel’s raiders were some of the same enchantresses from the “cultic orgy” of Numbers 25 that drew them into trouble with God and His Word. It is also important to mention that the so-called “towns” or “cities” Israel burned in verse ten were “encampments” and “maqads” or safe havens – cave structures that stored food and water for the journey through their surrounding territory. Moses was trying to make it clear that every Midianite in the area was taken, and the raiders checked carefully the region around the camp. What they brought back was a rich trove of stored materials, and a certainty that there would be no immediate counter-attack.

Scene Four – Moses Met Returnees:

Collecting the spoils of the encampments in the region, and the supplies of the maqads, they returned to Moses – with flocks, herds, plunder, women and children. The reading that follows is a bit jarring:

Numbers 31:13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. 19 “Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

The record of the return reveals that Moses looked at what they brought back. He was, no doubt, relieved to see them all come home. Any leader would be. He walked out of the camp to meet Eleazar the High Priest, and address the commanders of the tribal warriors of Israel. As he saw them, dirt and blood still dried on their skin and tunics, his eyes scanned the crowd. He saw the spoils of silver and gold, the trinkets and treasures of a people now defeated and dispatched. Then the smile slipped from his face… His mouth dropped open. Could it be? Were the very women that stood before him those who had seduced the children of Israel and brought about the idolatry and plagues a short time before? What had his army done? Why had they let them live? Here is the question at the heart of the narrative’s application for our study.

When my unbelieving friends want to criticize the Bible, verses like the one we just read are the very ones they use. They sound barbaric. Any Pastor would rather avoid these texts and hide inside the warmth of the Gospels or the reasoned argumentation of the Apostle Paul. This record is sickening to anyone who is not calloused. We are speaking of the death of women and children. How can this be in our Bible?

Despite what my students may say, I am not an un-compassionate man. Seriously, I ache when I see scenes from Damascus today, or Egypt, or Libya, or Afghanistan or Iraq. I cannot easily endure the sight of killing – and I have seen it before, and handled fallen bodies with my own hands. When you really look at war, you learn that, up close, all wars seem like crimes – regardless of the point. Who can take the life of a child and not be changed forever by the taking? I watched in horror as the footage was released of those who were painfully gasping for breath as they suffered the effects of Sarin nerve gas in Syria.

You see, the burning desire for God to fit into our feelings, our inner barometer of justice – makes us vulnerable to a sinful reshaping of God. Do you recall the key principle I cited for the study?

“God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.”

Let’s remember when we read of this tale that God was leading the people through the journey to the Promised Land. They were following Him when the enemy attacked through a slick traveling preacher named Balaam and his suggestion to win their hearts through sinful compromise. He may have sounded like a man of god, but the rattle of a snake was present behind his voice. He didn’t seem like such an offensive character – he was not a vulgar and boisterous man. He did not stand on the hillside shouting obscenities to his foes. He sat in a meeting, and quietly planned seduction and destruction of God’s people. He laid out the plans with care and shared with tribal chiefs how they could make God’s people GIVE THEM a victory they knew they could not TAKE by force. That’s the way the enemy really works most effectively. Why assault us openly when he can lull us into conformity and then force us into slavery?

Let’s recall when we encounter this story that God directed the assault on the people and that God had the absolute right to do so. That is where the real justice issue plows into our culture. It is that same sense of justice that is causing the modern “church of tolerance” so pervasive in our day – to reshape the Bible on a narrative on the mention of Hell. It offends an American culture that doesn’t truly accept authority – even from a Creator. In our culturally accepted arrogance, we feel qualified to shake our fist at Heaven itself and demand that God get into the box of our sense of fairness. He can’t kill if we don’t think He has that right. He can’t demand a man to take his only son and place him on an altar and sacrifice him at God’s call. God doesn’t really OWN people – He isn’t really ENTITLED to do as He pleases with my life… do you see where this is going?

Here is the crux of the struggle. A believer cannot truly make sense of God’s commands if they don’t remember God’s position as Creator, Master and Sovereign.

When we compromise on the Sovereignty of God, we destroy the Bible. We declare God subject to human will. We make Him answerable to US and not us to HIM. We draw back in fear of rejection or hunger for acceptance from a broken and temporary world and do not represent the God Who is not intimidated by the strongest of men. We stand, like David’s brothers, quaking before a defiant Goliath as he mocked the God of Abraham.

I simply argue that I cannot make the God of the Bible palatable to the arrogant voices of modernity. I have no way to bend God so low as to serve men’s pleasures, or to flex His sayings to make what is popular right. If the work of the shepherd in a church is going to be measured in terms of common popularity, I suspect those of us standing with the plain reading of the text will not be deemed successful this side of Heaven. No matter. All I can do is be as kind as possible, but be true to the Word as well.

Given time, people will re-write and explain away every counter-cultural statement of the Bible – including the Gospel itself. I like something Pastor Tim Keller wrote: “The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. [God should weigh out the good I have done in my life and let me into Heaven.] The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). [God sent His Son to save us.] In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God. You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once. So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, “The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.” But what about us moral failures? We are excluded. The gospel says, “The people who know they aren’t good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.” Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded. So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel’s is the more inclusive …. It says joyfully, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.” (taken from “Preaching Today”).

One who embraces the God of the Bible recognizes a truth the world is blinded to. They grasp that there is no compassion in man greater than compassion found in man’s Creator – He invented love, He invented care. God didn’t ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac without a plan to save both of them. God’s compassion was so great that HE GAVE HIS SON. He sent Jesus. He allowed Him to be nailed to a Cross. Then, in the midst of the agony and tears, God did the unthinkable. He left Jesus there. He allowed Jesus to experience the utter anguish of Hell – the separation from God Himself. Jesus had existed as ONE with the Father throughout the ages back to eternity. On a terrible early afternoon outside of Jerusalem as the sky grew dark, God turned His back on His Son. The separation tore at the universe on a molecular level. Jesus’ great punishment was not simply that He was stripped of His clothes in a body beaten nearly beyond recognition. His profound punishment was not simply that his skin was torn through by the piercing nails into his flesh. These things were horrible, but paled in comparison to the absolute horror of the tearing away of His Father.

Hell is exactly that. It is, at its essense, the removal of God’s presence. All the grace, gentleness and love evacuates like the day’s heat in the cloudless desert. The cold settles and the darkness envelopes the soul. The physical pains are real and descriptive, but the separation from God is the reason the thirteeeth century poet Dante Alighieri placed above the gates of Hell these words: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. Jesus did that for me and you – because that was required to save us from our mutiny.

You can try to make God fit into your mold – but God’s face will be shaped in your heart to look like your own. America is suffering from a need to have a man-like Christ in the place of a Christ-like Christian.

God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.

Perhaps nothing is more beautiful than a quartet of musical master performers playing soft chamber music on perfectly tuned and delicate strings. The dips and vibrations of the music are incredibly soothing to me. Conversely, nothing is more difficult to listen to than the dissonant sounds of an instrument utterly out of tune.

I am being brief because I want to get to the point, and I don’t want the point to be muddled by a cute opening story. Today we tackle a tough passage. It will not be boring, nor will it be complex. It will, however, be openly rejected by much of the church in our country at the beginning of this century. What we desire to study will be both TRUE and TERRIBLY UNPOPULAR – because the tones of this passage will sound as dissonant to the accepted morays of modernity. The Bible is not a book that flexes with man’s fickle sense of progress – it speaks as a foundational set of truths by the Creator. Those who do not believe that have already dismissed its message – and they control the “culture shaping” airwaves of our day. In Numbers 30 we are looking at a passage that was once in tune with our nation and her people, but no more. Yet, as our culture has walked away from Biblical truth, many have made God, our very Creator, the villain that works against our freedom and happiness. Even in the church, we find ourselves at odds with some key truths of Scripture.

Let me mention two, and then look carefully at one of them – because it is the heart of our passage for this lesson. We have been thoroughly taught that America was designed to be a “melting pot” of many people into one. At one time that was true. The corollary teaching that has been a subtext to many a politician’s speech has been this popular notion that PLURALITY is what makes America strong. I want deliberately to argue that is both an unwise premise and an untrue statement. Only a strong culture can accept many into its shores and resist giving up its long held tenets. As a nation keenly and deliberately built on certain Biblical premises expressed clearly in the Declaration of Independence, we were at one time able to accept masses into Ellis Island without diluting the essential nature of our understanding of national purpose and cosmic plan. Weakened from the inside, we no longer have such a resolve. Let me illustrate:

When a doctor that heads the department of surgery or a local government sponsored “health care review board” at our local hospital is Buddhist and believes in reincarnation, how do you suppose that will affect his view of the dignity of human life, and the amount of effort and cost that should be expended in the prolongation of life of a senior citizen?

Is plurality always a strength? Should not the dignity of man found in their ONE life on the earth be the deciding factor. No, if you are from a generation that equates pluralism with strength and the demand to stand on founding principle as a throw-back to some red neck form of ignorance. Pluralism is the sweet brand of polytheism that now reigns in the hallways of Kansas public schools that are challenged in court at the very mention Jesus, but enforce policies whereby students learn the five pillars of Islam. Pluralism in a culture that doesn’t know its own foundation is a tsunami pushing against a building that is unattached to a foundation. Yet, ask students across the country, and they will not only not know much of the Bible, they will overwhelmingly believe what they have been taught – pluralism is GOOD, and always the BEST WAY FORWARD.

If you find yourself troubled by the first illustration we just offered, you will find yourself enraged at the next one. We are going to tackle a treasured misbelief so dear, that many believers would fight with their last sinew of strength to defend a principle that just won’t hold up in the court of clear Biblical study. I don’t want to pick a fight, but the time to back up when the culture leans in to push the text around is long over. These clashes must be answered with LOVE, but that love does not imply a PUSH OVER DOCTRINE.

Key Principle: Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace.

Before we dive in, let’s set the passage in context. The “Civil Code” of Law in Exodus and Numbers finds its last chapter here. The subjects of Civil Code began with the Core Values of Exodus 20, along with some case studies on issues regarding Servants, Injuries, Property, Social Issues and Celebrations in Exodus 21-23. The Exodus account ends with an affirmation that the people of Israel would stand by that Law as a covenant with God (Exodus 24). The laws were to them, but the principles within those laws made clear the priorities of a changeless God that we serve today – and in that way the laws were also for us (in principle form). Numbers continued that Civil Code of Law in passages like:

• Numbers 5 that dealt with the purity in marriage and the faithfulness of a spouse.
• Numbers 6 we discussed the issues of purity again, and saw the Nazarite vow before the Lord.
• Numbers 15 we observed the “basics” of Jewish observance of religious rites that pleased God.
• As we end our view of the Civil Code, we have discussed offerings given to the Lord.
• In the end, we read of the very important statement concerning the subject of making VOWS before God.

Take a deep breath, because the lesson today isn’t about VOWS – it is about judicial responsibility before God. It is about the direct clash the Bible has with our modern assumption that God has made us all, in every way, absolutely EQUAL before Him. Let me be very clear to state something I believe to be overwhelmingly Biblical, but undeniably at odds with modern western culture… God did not make all men and women equal in responsibility before Him- though He made them all absolutely equal in value before Him.

I am not suggesting that our sex determines our VALUE before God – but it does determine our judicial equality and our culpability before God. The Bible nowhere tries to make the case that women have the same spiritual culpability and judicial responsibility before God as men. That doesn’t make them any LESS than it makes those of us without a WOMB less a parent. It makes us DIFFERENT, but modern western thinkers ABHOR DIFFERENCES – for they can only see one size for everyone. In modernity, there must be equal pay for one who cannot lift the jackhammer as for one who can – or somehow it is NOT FAIR.

Don’t write off what we are studying yet, for the Bible offers a very complete explanation that has been so thoroughly erased from our culture, that many young women would trade the Bible away for the promise of an equality that will leave them both empty and adrift.

First, let’s wrestle with the text before us, then we shall put it in a larger Biblical context. We will address it in a series of five principles:

Principle One: Tough Issues are supposed to be handled by leaders, and carefully explained to the people.

Look at the opening of Numbers 30:1 Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands…16 These are the regulations the Lord gave Moses concerning relationships between a man and his wife, and between a father and his young daughter still living at home.

Moses spent no time explaining God’s right to prescribe truth. That would have been foolish! This was the generation who spent time in the desert. They knew God stood for them in front of the Amalekites that attempted to wipe them out. Their parents told them of the parting of the Sea when Pharaoh launched an attack on them. Stories of manna and water from rocks filled their childhood ears – so God’s power and their protection was nothing new to them. Yet, like the miracles God performed to get a few small wooden vessels across the Atlantic to the shores of the new world; like the powerful record of God’s abundant provisions of dried corn to prayerful and desperate settlers at Plymouth Rock – many stories had lost their power over time. Moses simply took the Word of the Lord and spoke it. That was the beginning of power, and still is.

When the pulpits of our land ring with a serious tone of the truth of God’s Word – there will be seriousness about our sin. When our schools again remember that a Personal and Loving God gave us a world to live in – there will be the bowing of the knees of our people rather than the arrogance of entitlement. When Washington stops trying to placate the insatiable perversions of men and turns its sights again to the Heavens – the family will take wings and rise from the desperate ashes we have enflamed. Judgment begins with the household of God. Truth begins with the knowledge of the Lord. Where there is neither truth, nor seriousness over sin – folly reigns – and with it increasing darkness, higher expense, and less safety to good citizens.

Look at the words of the last verse of Numbers 30. This is the regulation of God. These are truths about how the Creator views the responsibility of men (fathers and later husbands) of a woman. This is God’s expectation, and behind it is a simple principle – people are to pattern respect, understanding and rules by what God says is right.

Principle Two: Your word is your bond before God!!

Moses moved to the simple statement that has been deeply eroded in our own litigious society. Numbers 30:2 When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

Here is the standard of a vow. Keep your word. Don’t look for a thousand justifications in piles of paperwork to somehow recuse yourself from keeping a promise. When you say you will do something, let your word be your bond. When you carefully speak to the Lord concerning an issue in your life, and you outline your own willingness to make a change – keep what you have promised. When you sign it, stop looking for ways to say you shouldn’t have to do what you signed.

I know in the slippery world we live in this principle is getting harder to deal with. Recently, I had to take a child to the hospital and was handed a form and told I had to sign it. I replied, I need to know something about the cost. I cannot simply sign that “I will be responsible for payment” when the amount could be $1,000 or $1,000,000. The man at the desk looked at me as if I grew an extra head. “Just sign it, that’s what everyone does!” I found no comfort in those words, and I know that it isn’t always as simple as doing what you said, when you cannot even know what promise you are making.

What I can say is this: a great many people are trying to skirt the rules they knew very well when they made promises. Let me try it this way: When you agreed to do your job, you may have been given sick days as part of your contract. These SICK DAYS are not extra vacation days. They are exactly what they are called – SICK DAYS. I cannot tell you as an employer how many people used them up on silliness, and then posited that I wasn’t a nice guy because now they “were actually sick!” Let’s stick to honest use of our tongues. If you have to lie to sell it, leave the work. If you have to cheat to win, quit the contest. If your word is no longer important to you – know that it IS IMPORTANT to God.

Principle Three: Women do not share equal judicial culpability before God.

Here is where we really get into some trouble with modern culture. First, listen to what Moses said God told him in Numbers 30:3 “When a young woman still living in her father’s household makes a vow to the Lord or obligates herself by a pledge 4 and her father hears about her vow or pledge but says nothing to her, then all her vows and every pledge by which she obligated herself will stand. 5 But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand; the Lord will release her because her father has forbidden her.

Look carefully at the conditions. This is a young woman that has not been married, and she is at her father’s home. She vows to the Lord something that she must do. When her father became aware of the vow, he had the power of a veto over her decision. At the same time, if she made the choice but her father rescinded her vow – God cleared her of responsibility for the vow.

Look at another case to underscore the point in the text. In Numbers 30:6 “If she marries after she makes a vow or after her lips utter a rash promise by which she obligates herself 7 and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her, then her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. 8 But if her husband forbids her when he hears about it, he nullifies the vow that obligates her or the rash promise by which she obligates herself, and the Lord will release her.

In the second case the woman is outside her father’s home, and living with her husband. She is an adult, and she is capable to busy herself in commerce, as Proverbs 31 clearly says. If she makes a rash promise and her husband hears and rejects the terms – God releases her from the guilt involved in that promise. This is one reason why the Bible insisted on parental involvement in the wedding process – something our culture now assumes to be utterly unimportant.

While some of you are ready to fight back about this as if God was robbing this woman of some intrinsic dignity and value – don’t forget the premise. Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace. God protected women in a way that our society has desperately tried to define as bondage.

When our culture followed God’s law, I could open a door for a woman without her feeling as though I was somehow stating that she could not manage to turn a knob and pull it. I could exempt her from the awful conditions of combat to keep her as a protected and cherished part of our homes that would not be subjected to the forced situations that plague our military even as we speak. We think we made women free – but we didn’t. We demeaned them by making them do things they were not meant to do. The horrors of war are just the beginning. The world stands back and cannot fathom the harm done to women in India, when a group of empowered men assault a woman in broad daylight. I will speak from my own experience – war is worse. It is unquestionably, unfathomably worse. Amped up with testosterone and with the taste of blood in the mouths of warriors, there is no place for a woman in a combat zone. You can agree or not, but I have been there, and I will not change my mind after the horrors I have seen.

Enough of my opinion, the text is what is important. The text makes certain that a woman is protected from ultimate judicial responsibility. That much is clear and undeniable.

Principle Four: There are women without coverings.

God never wanted it to be this way, but one of the most difficult parts of becoming a widow or a divorcee as a woman was to have your covering removed. The protection that a woman had under the law did not extend to such cases, as found in Numbers 30:9 “Any vow or obligation taken by a widow or divorced woman will be binding on her.

Here I can offer only one comfort: the fair warning should make one more careful about making agreements when uncovered. Advise should be sought, as it will make things safer. Fortunately for believers, we have a family beyond the physical, and this is one place the covering can be, at least in part, restored. That was part of the purpose of Paul’s careful instructions concerning widows to Timothy.

Principle Five: A husband is judicially responsible for his wife.

When you read the last part of the passage, it appears a repeat – but it is not. The purpose is to emphasize the end. In Numbers 30:10 “If a woman living with her husband makes a vow or obligates herself by a pledge under oath 11 and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her and does not forbid her, then all her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. 12 But if her husband nullifies them when he hears about them, then none of the vows or pledges that came from her lips will stand. Her husband has nullified them, and the Lord will release her. 13 Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow she makes or any sworn pledge to deny herself. 14 But if her husband says nothing to her about it from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or the pledges binding on her. He confirms them by saying nothing to her when he hears about them. 15 If, however, he nullifies them some time after he hears about them, then he must bear the consequences of her wrongdoing.”

The point of the passage is that the husband is held fully responsible for his wife’s vow if knows about it and does not swiftly nullify it. This is because of the judicial chain of responsibility of the Bible.

If you look elsewhere in the Bible, you will see how this truth plays out in life for a believer, even today. Let’s looks at three passages that will help us see it:

First, let’s recall when, how and why women were created in Genesis 2.

Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

• God had the intention of making woman to help man because he would be alone, and that was not good (2:18).
• God made her to be different (“nehged” is translated “suitable” but also “apart from” or “opposite” him – 2:18).
• God waited for man to recognize that there was no one “like” him, even though it was clear to God already (2:19-20). This is a common pattern, where God allowed man to learn what he needed to by experience.
• God fashioned woman FROM man – so that he would cherish her as part of himself. Self-preservation and its paired value of EGO were very much a part of man from the beginning (2:21-23).

Here is the part we often read past. The point of the passage wasn’t supposed to offer a science lesson on woman’s creation – it was much more. The whole POINT to the story was the end in 2:24. God formed the family based on the MAN HAVING THE JUDICIAL RESPONSIBILITY before God and making himself responsible for covering the woman. The woman was to be HIS RESPONSIBILITY to love and protect, to cherish and provide for. This wasn’t supposed to be about her taking responsibility for HIM. That is the projection of values that are foreign to the Biblical idea.

I simply argue that we MUST teach young men to care for women with a special protective cover. They should not mock, mimic or molest – but treat them with respect, care and courtesy. It MUST come from within the church – because the society is at odds with this under the guise of “equal rights”. I will say it again – because I do not have a womb does not make me less a parent. Value is not the same as function. She is to be prized, but she is to be protected. That is the clear pattern of the text.

Second, let’s examine the cataclysm of the Fall in Genesis 3 and observe what happened to women in the aftermath of the Fall.

Sin entered the garden with the Tempter taking the form of the serpent. In Genesis 3:16 God spoke to the woman about her rebellion and its consequences: “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”

Even the most casual reading reveals three truths: First, God levied a measure of discipline on the woman directly. Second, the reproductive system and pain were part of the discipline. Third, she would have a desire that was part of the discipline – a passion for something regarding her husband that was followed by the phrase – “Your husband will rule over you!” The term for “desire” is seldom used in Scripture, but is used in cases where one stretched out to gain something they wanted – they reached for it. The term “rule” simply translates “have dominion”. A simple reading is this: You will reach for control, but I have given that to him. You aren’t in charge, but you will want to be.

“Chauvinist!” You may yell. Ok, I don’t believe if you knew me you would believe that, but I am willing to accept that in “modern culture terms” that is what it looks like. Rack that one up alongside the notion of “tolerance” that is now making it impossible to agree with the Bible on marriage and morality and still be considered a truly “loving” person. Rather than being a reactionary, let’s simply evaluate what the Bible actually says. For those who don’t like it, that is a different problem than those who don’t hear it clearly or understand it thoroughly.

Third, let’s observe the way Paul applied the truths about women to leadership issues in the church.

Paul’s argument about women leading in the church had nothing to do with their personal capability to do so. He didn’t stop women from Pastoral ministry because he thought they were less adequate in their mind or heart. He did so because the Scripture doesn’t allow us to overrule the judicial standards of God because we wanted God to do things more in keeping with our culture.

Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, [and] then Eve. 14 And [it was] not Adam [who] was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But [women] will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

Paul argued the reasons she was to quietly learn in the public worship meetings of the church were because of the order of creation, and the order of the deception involved in the Fall in the Garden. In another letter, this one to the Corinthian church he said this in 1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have [a symbol of] authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. … 16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

Here Paul added to the order of creation and fall, and inserted PURPOSE of Creation, and because of some on-looking angels, that seem to still be open to rebellion. He finished the passage with a note that ALL THE CHURCHES were so instructed – resisting the notion that this was but a localized principle for the women in Corinth.

Finally, let’s see how Numbers 30 applies in principle to the background of these three other passages.

Let me say it gently, carefully, but ever so clearly. God made women from men and held them under a man’s judicial responsibility. They were designed to be cherished not abused, protected not objectified. Our culture stands opposed to this. They want EQUAL RIGHTS to mean that she serves in combat, and she is treated in all respects as though her body is identical to his. It offends common logic, and worse yet – is flat out un-Biblical.

Now the point of the lesson:

Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace.

We won’t find peace in our society by erasing the Bible – we will find confusion. We won’t free women by saddling them with weight they were not designed to carry – regardless of how many people in our society say we will. These are the voices that say “family” is a cultural term. These are the voices that say “gender” is in your “head” and not determined by your biology. Watch the social services budgets soar as we create more confused, more entitled, more broken people. They wanted easy divorce – they got it. They want now to erase the other lines. The Bible will not go with them – so they will fight to extinguish its message. We will, filled with love and compassion – look them in the eye and tell them they are wrong. The undoing of the foundation will be the undoing of the society it built. Of that, I have no doubt.

We will deal honestly with the clash of cultures, just as Christians have done for centuries. We will wash their dirty feet and hug filthy bodies. We will work hard and provide for ourselves to be an example to the ever growing community of the confused and needy. Their freedoms will enslave them, but we will show them where the key that unlocks the shackles can be found. The Savior still has the keys!