Understanding Justice and Sin: Insights from Numbers 31-32

In this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, the hosts invite men to join the men's Bible study, focusing on the qualifications of a biblical elder as applicable to all men. They dive into discussions on being a one-woman man and self-controlled. The main Bible study covers Numbers 31-32, addressing the concept of just war ordained by God against the Midianites, illustrating the idea of divine justice and the serious nature of sin. They discuss the importance of not only obedience but complete obedience to God. The conversation also touches on the Reuben and Gad tribes' request to settle outside the Promised Land, interpreting it as a lack of foresight in desiring immediate contentment over God's ultimate plan. The episode concludes with a prayer for wisdom and humility in understanding difficult biblical passages.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:02 Men's Bible Study Invitation

00:19 Qualifications of a Biblical Elder

01:02 Discussion on Self-Control and Faithfulness

02:39 Just War and God's Justice

11:37 Reuben and Gad's Request

13:42 Closing Prayer and Final Thoughts

14:26 Outro and Podcast Information

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

Hey everybody.

2

Welcome back to another edition

of the daily Bible podcast.

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I want to see you at men's Bible study.

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We're talking to you men.

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That's right.

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Not women.

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Cause last week we were telling the

women to go to the women's Bible study.

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Yes.

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This week we want the men to

go to the men's Bible study.

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Be there.

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Or be square.

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Yeah.

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Or be something else.

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Be lame.

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Yeah.

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No, we want you there guys.

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It's going to be good.

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It's going to be helpful for you

We're continuing to go through the

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qualifications of a biblical elder

or pastor Which again our point of

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the series is we feel like these are

qualifications for every man That's

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what the scriptures say that the reason

that the qualifications are there

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for the elders because they're meant

to be Exemplified by them so that

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they can be replicated by the church.

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Yep Yeah.

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So there's no better place for you to be

this morning than to be a men's bottle.

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Say, yeah, we're going to talk

about being a one woman, man.

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We're going to talk about being

sober minded and self controlled.

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So we're tackling three that'll

help us get to the list at a more

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I don't know, expedited pace.

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And I think these are great.

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I, some of them are overlapping with

conversations that we've had previously,

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so we covered the fruit of the spirit.

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We talked about self control, so

there is some overlap, but I think

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what we're talking about is while

still within the same ballpark at a

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slightly different angle, I think it's

going to be really helpful to you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Also self control, you know what a great

passage is to preach on self control.

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I do.

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Do you?

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I know one of the best passages,

but some people might preach

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faithfulness from that same passage.

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not.

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I think both work.

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Do they?

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I think both work.

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It's funny because the word faithfulness

is not in that passage at all.

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I discipline my body and

I exercise self control.

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Okay.

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I was talking to somebody recently about

preaching principles from texts that

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don't necessarily directly talk about.

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That's not the same thing.

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Don't try to misuse my point against me.

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I just, I'm just saying,

I think both work.

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That's if you say so, pastor PJ, and

since you're the lead senior pastor

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extraordinaire, I'm gonna let you have

it common Don, but in my mind and in my

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heart, I'm still thinking the opposite.

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Are you can't have access

to something that you need.

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It's a deal with between you and God.

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Now, is that right?

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I don't think God's

against me on this one.

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I think I'm okay.

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I think standing on

solid ground over here.

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Yeah.

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Like faithfulness.

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Are you faithful in that pursuit?

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I don't know.

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Faithfulness is such a broad term.

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I pissed this, the word for

faithfulness to be I think of the

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word as being something that means

I do what I say I'm going to do.

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Like I disciplined my

body to make it my slave.

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Blessed after preaching Christ to

others on myself should be disqualified.

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I think that's a shade different.

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Cause it's an expression of faithfulness.

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It is an express.

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And okay, that's a great point.

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It's an expression of faithfulness, but

faithfulness in and of itself, I think

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requires a definition, which is the

whole idea of saying, okay, faithfulness

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is the act of doing what you say.

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I think it's probably closer to

integrity and the, and that's what it

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looks like, as opposed to saying, okay,

cause it's two steps down the road.

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I know.

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Cause somebody who's faithful,

somebody who's going to stay the

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course and to stay the course,

you have to discipline your body.

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Discipline.

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Yes.

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I agree with that.

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I'm not saying that they're totally

like out of the same ballpark.

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Just saying there might've

been a better Texas.

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Oh okay.

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Agreed to disagree All right.

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All right speed of text.

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Let's get into the text before us this

morning for our Bible reading We've

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got numbers 31 and numbers 32 Numbers

31 we have war Again, and remember why

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war now they're not yet in the promised

land, they're getting ready and this

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is part of God preparing his people.

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And this is a dry run that Israel is not

going to do a great job in because even

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though they're not yet in the promised

land the media nights, why are they

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taking vengeance on median to begin with?

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Remember the media nights had ensnared

the hearts of the Israelites with

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their false God, the God bail.

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And the way they had done this and

why they had done this is because

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Balaam, and we find out about that

here Balaam had incited the Midianites

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to lure the Israelites to their false

idol worship through the lady folk.

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We'll just put it that way.

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And so God wanted vengeance to be And

that's why this is important for us.

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We've, we haven't really talked about

just war, but maybe this is a good

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opportunity for us to talk about just war.

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Because with the United States, we

can think we're USA, Captain America,

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we're Team USA, so we're going to

cheer on USA and we're going to

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be supporting the United States.

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Whatever wars that USA wants

to be involved in, we think

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USA is the good guys in this.

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And this is where we have to be careful

not to conflate America with Israel.

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And I think there's clear lines

that we can draw other places, but

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this is where it's important for us

to say, okay, is this a just war?

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And you're saying, why does this matter?

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It matters for some of your

18 year old young men who may

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want to go into the military.

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It matters for believers who are fighting,

these wars on behalf of our nation.

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And being asked to carry out strikes

and kill people and take lives at

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the end of the day for them to come

back and say, is this a just war?

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And by just, we mean just not in

accordance with our standards, but just

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in accordance with God's standards.

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So as chapter 31 opens, God tells.

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Israel, go and take vengeance

against the Midianites.

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This is one clear way that

we know that this is just war

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because this is coming from God.

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It's his instructions.

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And why is he instructing them to

take vengeance on Midian again?

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Because Midian had lured Israel

God's people away from the pure,

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unadulterated worship of him.

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And cause them to worship

the false god bail.

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And so that's why God said

justice needs to be served here.

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And justice in God's eyes here was the

extermination of the people of Midian.

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Yeah.

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And that's an important thing to consider.

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Cause I know a lot of people that

they're going to struggle with that.

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And part because in, in most people's

minds, this is God's slaughtering

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of people, this is an unjust God

and afflicting his vengeance on

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just really anybody, Willy nilly.

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So can you talk to or even maybe even

provide some resources for people

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who are going to struggle with.

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Man, we're not even getting into it yet.

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We haven't gotten into Joshua.

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Let's give some people some options about

how to think about this the right way.

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And I know Paul Kopin has one of

those books that we really like.

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Something about his God, a moral monster.

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That's the one.

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Are there any other resources that

you might recommend or suggest for

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people as we make our way through

these really challenging chapters?

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Man, you're catching me

flat footed on this one.

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Sorry.

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I'm trying to think

off the top of my head.

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I think Carson has done

some work in this territory.

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Let me address the issue.

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What we're seeing here

is we're, this is not.

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injustice.

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This is in fact justice.

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This is in fact what everyone

from the dawn of time deserves.

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So what we're seeing here is really

God suspending the common grace of

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allowing these nations to continue

in a state of rebellion to him and

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sinfulness in and of them themselves.

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We're seeing God suspend a common

grace and enact actual justice.

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through the carrying out of

this war against the Midianites.

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We're seeing when God says you

should go in and slaughter them.

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We are seeing what we read

about in Romans, but it's

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softened by the new covenant.

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When we read in Romans, Paul

says the wages of sin is death.

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That's, this is what that looks like.

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And when we agree to that and say yes

and amen, that the wages of sin is death.

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We don't understand that then

in application looks like the

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slaughtering of the Midianites here.

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Or when we get into the promised

land, the vanquishing of the people,

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In the promised land, they are on

the wrong side of God's justice.

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They are on the sinful side of

God's standard, which all of us

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are, but for the grace of God go we.

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And so rather than looking at this and

saying that this is unjust, we need to

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look at this and say, no, wow, this is,

wow, this is what justice actually is.

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How great is God's grace and mercy

that this is not what all of us

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have experienced in our lives.

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If you want to say is it fair, God is

not about fairness by our standards.

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It's why does he spare us but punish them.

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This gets into the Romans nine territory

and that gets above our pay grade to,

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to be able to say to the potter, why are

you doing what you're doing as we are the

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clay, the pottery, but this is justice.

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Yeah.

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And we really don't want God's fairness.

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If God were fair, he would deal

with us according to our sin.

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And that would mean

condemnation and punishment.

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It is the fact that God is not fair, at

least in the way that we're using it here,

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that allows us to be allied with Christ.

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And it's because God is willing to Suspend

his just judgment and put it on Christ

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that we're able to have that relationship

with him So you have to think about these

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passages in totality and not just in

their microorganism in this one specific

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chapter We both really like the book by

Paul Copeland because it's so easy It's

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so accessible and we think it does a

really good job of addressing some of the

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common pitfalls that Christians fall into

when you're dealing with these things.

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And of course, the justice

conversation is at the forefront.

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And on top of that, there's the

idea of what, what is meant by

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devoting people to destruction.

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And there's more than one biblically

faithful approach to that.

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And so we would commend that book

to you if this at all challenges

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you, but we want God's justice.

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We want God to do right.

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And he certainly will do right.

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Yeah, he will.

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And what happens here is the Israelites

don't follow through on this.

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They spare the women and the children and

they come back and Moses discovers this.

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It reminds me of of Samuel and

Agag, Saul and Agag, right?

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Because Samuel was like, what is this

lowing of animals that I hear here?

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Moses is upset because

they've kept the women alive.

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And you might say, okay, in our society

it's a chivalrous thing to Take care

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of the women to spare the women.

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But remember here, this is going back

to something that Balaam had done

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and Balaam had excited the women to

play the the seductresses to lure

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the Israelite men particularly away.

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And then by extension that the rest

of Israel to the worship of Baal.

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And so there was, they were

bearing, even in some regards, the.

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It's special guilt here

for this situation.

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And so that's why Moses says,

okay, here's what we're going to

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do and instructs the killing of

the women and the male children.

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Because God's desire was for the

Midianite people to be wiped out.

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Now this is not going to wipe

out all of the Midianite people.

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And that's an important thing

for us to remember because the

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Midianites, that term is a broad term.

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Amongst the Midianites were a right

wide range of people that included the

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Ishmaelites the Moabites the Amalekites

And so this is a particular camp of

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the Midianite people that God wanted

destroyed in this instance and Israel's

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disobedience Was going to be a problem

and this is a failure on this dry run

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because they're gonna need to be ready to

do this When they enter into the promised

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land I think one of the points that you

would Want to take away here is that

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incomplete obedience is disobedience.

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And that's one of the things here,

either you kill sin or sin kills you.

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That's really the only way that you can

approach this as you see sin in your life.

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If you try to say, let me just, let

me just try to negotiate with this

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thing and see if I can keep just a

tad of a tad bit of it in my life.

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You're going to fail.

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Sin does not operate according

to our rational pretenses.

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It will always overtake and destroy you.

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That's the point.

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Sin's job is to steal from

you to kill you destroy.

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That's what John 10 10 says.

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I believe that's the idea here

You got to do obedience to the

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Lord full Faithful without flaw.

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You've got to kill sin or it'll kill you.

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Yeah, and it is Deceptive

in the long game.

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Sometimes I was listening to

some molar the other morning.

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He was talking about a situation

in Uganda and he said in Uganda the

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law is Homosexual behavior is life

imprisonment And the death penalty

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in some situations and I found

myself listening to that going, wow.

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And my initial thought was that

sounds extreme only because how

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much our culture has softened

its stance towards that behavior.

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But that biblically speaking,

that's on par with what God's

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command would be in that situation.

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That's what, when we try to mollycoddle

sin, when we try to not call sin, sin

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inward, when we try to soften it too much.

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It ends up over time, doling our

senses to the point that we grow

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comfortable to even as Christians.

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And so we got to be careful about that

too, and make sure that we're not letting

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sin in the camp in the church that

we're not tolerating sinful mindsets and

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behaviors, but that we are zealous for

the purity and holiness of God, which

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most practically, we don't, I don't.

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I think a lot of people in

our church are struggling with

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that particular sin tendency.

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But I can tell you one sin

that we all struggle with

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gossip and being privy to it.

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This is one of those sins that

people often look down on.

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It's not a big deal, but to your point, we

need to see all sin as being threatening

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to the unity and the glory of Christ

in our church, the unity of the church

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and the glory of Christ in our church.

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So that's one area where it may not

be this particular sin, but take sin

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seriously and make sure that you're

not allowing that to, to sidestep you

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or do damage to The church of God.

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Did I hear you suggest that you're

running for presidency and your platform

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is going to be slanders and gossips,

life imprisonment or death penalty?

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That's exactly what you heard, bro.

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Okay.

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There we go.

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I'm throwing my hat into the ring.

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Pastor Rob, 2028.

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That's right.

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It doesn't have a nice ring to it though.

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I'm trying to think, yeah, I

can't come up with anything.

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Somebody will.

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Yeah.

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Email your best pastor rod

campaign slogans for us.

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That's right.

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We would love to see them come

in at a podcast at company x.

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org.

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Okay.

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Anyways chapter 32 then.

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Reuben and Gad.

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So these two tribes are

are shepherding tribes.

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They've got a lot of livestock and

where they are on the trans Jordan side.

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So not in the promise land.

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They're still, they haven't

crossed over the Jordan river yet.

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They're noticing in this chapter,

Hey, this land is pretty good for us,

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our flocks, there's room for them.

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They can graze here that the

land is good for shepherding.

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They make a request.

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They say, Hey, can we settle here?

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And initially Moses says no,

because you're just going

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to let us go over and fight.

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And you're going to watch while

your brothers and everybody else

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goes over and risk their lives

for the actual promised land.

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But Reuben and Gad say,

no we'll do our part.

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So they're saying we'll go over with them.

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And then after everybody settled,

then we want to come back here.

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So it's an interesting request because

the promised land is God's land.

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I don't think this is a good move

from Reuben and Gad, because God

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wanted his whole people to take

possession of the promised land.

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Now, Moses.

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Acquiesces to their request, and

it's not as though God seems to

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immediately punish them for this.

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But this is a head scratcher of a

move for me where it seems like.

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Maybe the parallel for us today is

God's got good things in store for us.

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And sometimes we have to

wait for those good things.

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And our temptation may be like

Reuben Gad to look around where

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we're at right now and say God,

can't I just be okay right now?

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Can't I just stay here?

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Even go back to Abraham and Ishmael when

Abraham first had Ishmael and God said,

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Hey, I'm going to give you another son.

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That's going to be the heir of promise.

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And Abraham said to God

can't you just use Ishmael?

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Look, I've got a son right now.

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Just be pleased with that.

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Why do we need anything else?

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And I think here it Reuben and Gad

maybe are lack of foresight, not

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realizing the blessings of being

in the land and choosing instead

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to say, we'll stay over here.

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This is good enough for us.

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And I think as Christians, we've

got to be careful not to say,

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Hey God, we're good enough here.

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When God might be saying, you know

what there's going to be some seasons

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of painful growth in front of you.

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But the payoff is going to be so much

better if you're willing to put in the

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hard work to get there And we can be

tempted to say I'm good enough where I'm

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at God and not stretch ourselves not grow

as much as God might Want us to grow?

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Yeah, that's a good word And this is gonna

be a problem for them later on when we get

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to the book of Joshua They're gonna have

to work hard to say hey, we're part of the

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team, too Yeah, please don't don't think

that we're not we're gonna build something

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and make it evident that we're part of

team Israel Because there's confusion

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now because they're on the other side.

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That's gonna be Joshua 22.

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We'll see that soon enough.

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But for now This is probably, I agree.

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This is probably a bad move for them.

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Hey, let's pray.

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And then we'll be done with this episode.

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God, give us a heart of wisdom and

humility as we read difficult things

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in the scriptures, as we're going to

come across a lot of it, even with

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the conquest of the promised land.

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And in other situations, we don't want

to sit in judgment over your word.

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We want to sit under your

word and be instructed by it.

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And we want to be careful not to hold you

to a fallen broken man made standard of

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what we deem is right and just and fair.

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And so God help us to work

through still hard things.

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And we may be uncomfortable and yet help

us to find a confidence in you enough to

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say, God we don't necessarily like this.

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It's not the way that we wish it

was, but we trust that it's the

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way that you've deemed it to be and

that it's good as a result of that.

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So we ask this and pray

this in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Keep reading the Bibles.

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Tune in again tomorrow for another

edition of the daily Bible podcast.

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See you then.

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Bye.

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Speaker: Hey, thanks for

joining us for another episode

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of the daily Bible podcast.

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We hope and pray this has been a blessing

to you and your time in the word.

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If it has, if you would subscribe to this

podcast, leave a like, leave a comment

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and share it with some friends and family.

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That would be awesome.

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If you need more information about

Compass Bible Church here in North

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Texas, you can go to compassntx.

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org.

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Again, that's compassntx.

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org.

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And we'll be back with you

tomorrow for another episode

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of the daily Bible podcast.