Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. I want to see you at men's Bible study. We're talking to you men. That's right. Not women. Cause last week we were telling the women to go to the women's Bible study. Yes. This week we want the men to go to the men's Bible study. Be there. Or be square. Yeah. Or be something else. Be lame. Yeah. No, we want you there guys. It's going to be good. It's going to be helpful for you We're continuing to go through the qualifications of a biblical elder or pastor Which again our point of the series is we feel like these are qualifications for every man That's what the scriptures say that the reason that the qualifications are there for the elders because they're meant to be Exemplified by them so that they can be replicated by the church. Yep Yeah. So there's no better place for you to be this morning than to be a men's bottle. Say, yeah, we're going to talk about being a one woman, man. We're going to talk about being sober minded and self controlled. So we're tackling three that'll help us get to the list at a more I don't know, expedited pace. And I think these are great. I, some of them are overlapping with conversations that we've had previously, so we covered the fruit of the spirit. We talked about self control, so there is some overlap, but I think what we're talking about is while still within the same ballpark at a slightly different angle, I think it's going to be really helpful to you. Yeah. Yeah. Also self control, you know what a great passage is to preach on self control. I do. Do you? I know one of the best passages, but some people might preach faithfulness from that same passage. not. I think both work. Do they? I think both work. It's funny because the word faithfulness is not in that passage at all. I discipline my body and I exercise self control. Okay. I was talking to somebody recently about preaching principles from texts that don't necessarily directly talk about. That's not the same thing. Don't try to misuse my point against me. I just, I'm just saying, I think both work. That's if you say so, pastor PJ, and since you're the lead senior pastor extraordinaire, I'm gonna let you have it common Don, but in my mind and in my heart, I'm still thinking the opposite. Are you can't have access to something that you need. It's a deal with between you and God. Now, is that right? I don't think God's against me on this one. I think I'm okay. I think standing on solid ground over here. Yeah. Like faithfulness. Are you faithful in that pursuit? I don't know. Faithfulness is such a broad term. I pissed this, the word for faithfulness to be I think of the word as being something that means I do what I say I'm going to do. Like I disciplined my body to make it my slave. Blessed after preaching Christ to others on myself should be disqualified. I think that's a shade different. Cause it's an expression of faithfulness. It is an express. And okay, that's a great point. It's an expression of faithfulness, but faithfulness in and of itself, I think requires a definition, which is the whole idea of saying, okay, faithfulness is the act of doing what you say. I think it's probably closer to integrity and the, and that's what it looks like, as opposed to saying, okay, cause it's two steps down the road. I know. Cause somebody who's faithful, somebody who's going to stay the course and to stay the course, you have to discipline your body. Discipline. Yes. I agree with that. I'm not saying that they're totally like out of the same ballpark. Just saying there might've been a better Texas. Oh okay. Agreed to disagree All right. All right speed of text. Let's get into the text before us this morning for our Bible reading We've got numbers 31 and numbers 32 Numbers 31 we have war Again, and remember why war now they're not yet in the promised land, they're getting ready and this is part of God preparing his people. And this is a dry run that Israel is not going to do a great job in because even though they're not yet in the promised land the media nights, why are they taking vengeance on median to begin with? Remember the media nights had ensnared the hearts of the Israelites with their false God, the God bail. And the way they had done this and why they had done this is because Balaam, and we find out about that here Balaam had incited the Midianites to lure the Israelites to their false idol worship through the lady folk. We'll just put it that way. And so God wanted vengeance to be And that's why this is important for us. We've, we haven't really talked about just war, but maybe this is a good opportunity for us to talk about just war. Because with the United States, we can think we're USA, Captain America, we're Team USA, so we're going to cheer on USA and we're going to be supporting the United States. Whatever wars that USA wants to be involved in, we think USA is the good guys in this. And this is where we have to be careful not to conflate America with Israel. And I think there's clear lines that we can draw other places, but this is where it's important for us to say, okay, is this a just war? And you're saying, why does this matter? It matters for some of your 18 year old young men who may want to go into the military. It matters for believers who are fighting, these wars on behalf of our nation. And being asked to carry out strikes and kill people and take lives at the end of the day for them to come back and say, is this a just war? And by just, we mean just not in accordance with our standards, but just in accordance with God's standards. So as chapter 31 opens, God tells. Israel, go and take vengeance against the Midianites. This is one clear way that we know that this is just war because this is coming from God. It's his instructions. And why is he instructing them to take vengeance on Midian again? Because Midian had lured Israel God's people away from the pure, unadulterated worship of him. And cause them to worship the false god bail. And so that's why God said justice needs to be served here. And justice in God's eyes here was the extermination of the people of Midian. Yeah. And that's an important thing to consider. Cause I know a lot of people that they're going to struggle with that. And part because in, in most people's minds, this is God's slaughtering of people, this is an unjust God and afflicting his vengeance on just really anybody, Willy nilly. So can you talk to or even maybe even provide some resources for people who are going to struggle with. Man, we're not even getting into it yet. We haven't gotten into Joshua. Let's give some people some options about how to think about this the right way. And I know Paul Kopin has one of those books that we really like. Something about his God, a moral monster. That's the one. Are there any other resources that you might recommend or suggest for people as we make our way through these really challenging chapters? Man, you're catching me flat footed on this one. Sorry. I'm trying to think off the top of my head. I think Carson has done some work in this territory. Let me address the issue. What we're seeing here is we're, this is not. injustice. This is in fact justice. This is in fact what everyone from the dawn of time deserves. So what we're seeing here is really God suspending the common grace of allowing these nations to continue in a state of rebellion to him and sinfulness in and of them themselves. We're seeing God suspend a common grace and enact actual justice. through the carrying out of this war against the Midianites. We're seeing when God says you should go in and slaughter them. We are seeing what we read about in Romans, but it's softened by the new covenant. When we read in Romans, Paul says the wages of sin is death. That's, this is what that looks like. And when we agree to that and say yes and amen, that the wages of sin is death. We don't understand that then in application looks like the slaughtering of the Midianites here. Or when we get into the promised land, the vanquishing of the people, In the promised land, they are on the wrong side of God's justice. They are on the sinful side of God's standard, which all of us are, but for the grace of God go we. And so rather than looking at this and saying that this is unjust, we need to look at this and say, no, wow, this is, wow, this is what justice actually is. How great is God's grace and mercy that this is not what all of us have experienced in our lives. If you want to say is it fair, God is not about fairness by our standards. It's why does he spare us but punish them. This gets into the Romans nine territory and that gets above our pay grade to, to be able to say to the potter, why are you doing what you're doing as we are the clay, the pottery, but this is justice. Yeah. And we really don't want God's fairness. If God were fair, he would deal with us according to our sin. And that would mean condemnation and punishment. It is the fact that God is not fair, at least in the way that we're using it here, that allows us to be allied with Christ. And it's because God is willing to Suspend his just judgment and put it on Christ that we're able to have that relationship with him So you have to think about these passages in totality and not just in their microorganism in this one specific chapter We both really like the book by Paul Copeland because it's so easy It's so accessible and we think it does a really good job of addressing some of the common pitfalls that Christians fall into when you're dealing with these things. And of course, the justice conversation is at the forefront. And on top of that, there's the idea of what, what is meant by devoting people to destruction. And there's more than one biblically faithful approach to that. And so we would commend that book to you if this at all challenges you, but we want God's justice. We want God to do right. And he certainly will do right. Yeah, he will. And what happens here is the Israelites don't follow through on this. They spare the women and the children and they come back and Moses discovers this. It reminds me of of Samuel and Agag, Saul and Agag, right? Because Samuel was like, what is this lowing of animals that I hear here? Moses is upset because they've kept the women alive. And you might say, okay, in our society it's a chivalrous thing to Take care of the women to spare the women. But remember here, this is going back to something that Balaam had done and Balaam had excited the women to play the the seductresses to lure the Israelite men particularly away. And then by extension that the rest of Israel to the worship of Baal. And so there was, they were bearing, even in some regards, the. It's special guilt here for this situation. And so that's why Moses says, okay, here's what we're going to do and instructs the killing of the women and the male children. Because God's desire was for the Midianite people to be wiped out. Now this is not going to wipe out all of the Midianite people. And that's an important thing for us to remember because the Midianites, that term is a broad term. Amongst the Midianites were a right wide range of people that included the Ishmaelites the Moabites the Amalekites And so this is a particular camp of the Midianite people that God wanted destroyed in this instance and Israel's disobedience Was going to be a problem and this is a failure on this dry run because they're gonna need to be ready to do this When they enter into the promised land I think one of the points that you would Want to take away here is that incomplete obedience is disobedience. And that's one of the things here, either you kill sin or sin kills you. That's really the only way that you can approach this as you see sin in your life. If you try to say, let me just, let me just try to negotiate with this thing and see if I can keep just a tad of a tad bit of it in my life. You're going to fail. Sin does not operate according to our rational pretenses. It will always overtake and destroy you. That's the point. Sin's job is to steal from you to kill you destroy. That's what John 10 10 says. I believe that's the idea here You got to do obedience to the Lord full Faithful without flaw. You've got to kill sin or it'll kill you. Yeah, and it is Deceptive in the long game. Sometimes I was listening to some molar the other morning. He was talking about a situation in Uganda and he said in Uganda the law is Homosexual behavior is life imprisonment And the death penalty in some situations and I found myself listening to that going, wow. And my initial thought was that sounds extreme only because how much our culture has softened its stance towards that behavior. But that biblically speaking, that's on par with what God's command would be in that situation. That's what, when we try to mollycoddle sin, when we try to not call sin, sin inward, when we try to soften it too much. It ends up over time, doling our senses to the point that we grow comfortable to even as Christians. And so we got to be careful about that too, and make sure that we're not letting sin in the camp in the church that we're not tolerating sinful mindsets and behaviors, but that we are zealous for the purity and holiness of God, which most practically, we don't, I don't. I think a lot of people in our church are struggling with that particular sin tendency. But I can tell you one sin that we all struggle with gossip and being privy to it. This is one of those sins that people often look down on. It's not a big deal, but to your point, we need to see all sin as being threatening to the unity and the glory of Christ in our church, the unity of the church and the glory of Christ in our church. So that's one area where it may not be this particular sin, but take sin seriously and make sure that you're not allowing that to, to sidestep you or do damage to The church of God. Did I hear you suggest that you're running for presidency and your platform is going to be slanders and gossips, life imprisonment or death penalty? That's exactly what you heard, bro. Okay. There we go. I'm throwing my hat into the ring. Pastor Rob, 2028. That's right. It doesn't have a nice ring to it though. I'm trying to think, yeah, I can't come up with anything. Somebody will. Yeah. Email your best pastor rod campaign slogans for us. That's right. We would love to see them come in at a podcast at company x. org. Okay. Anyways chapter 32 then. Reuben and Gad. So these two tribes are are shepherding tribes. They've got a lot of livestock and where they are on the trans Jordan side. So not in the promise land. They're still, they haven't crossed over the Jordan river yet. They're noticing in this chapter, Hey, this land is pretty good for us, our flocks, there's room for them. They can graze here that the land is good for shepherding. They make a request. They say, Hey, can we settle here? And initially Moses says no, because you're just going to let us go over and fight. And you're going to watch while your brothers and everybody else goes over and risk their lives for the actual promised land. But Reuben and Gad say, no we'll do our part. So they're saying we'll go over with them. And then after everybody settled, then we want to come back here. So it's an interesting request because the promised land is God's land. I don't think this is a good move from Reuben and Gad, because God wanted his whole people to take possession of the promised land. Now, Moses. Acquiesces to their request, and it's not as though God seems to immediately punish them for this. But this is a head scratcher of a move for me where it seems like. Maybe the parallel for us today is God's got good things in store for us. And sometimes we have to wait for those good things. And our temptation may be like Reuben Gad to look around where we're at right now and say God, can't I just be okay right now? Can't I just stay here? Even go back to Abraham and Ishmael when Abraham first had Ishmael and God said, Hey, I'm going to give you another son. That's going to be the heir of promise. And Abraham said to God can't you just use Ishmael? Look, I've got a son right now. Just be pleased with that. Why do we need anything else? And I think here it Reuben and Gad maybe are lack of foresight, not realizing the blessings of being in the land and choosing instead to say, we'll stay over here. This is good enough for us. And I think as Christians, we've got to be careful not to say, Hey God, we're good enough here. When God might be saying, you know what there's going to be some seasons of painful growth in front of you. But the payoff is going to be so much better if you're willing to put in the hard work to get there And we can be tempted to say I'm good enough where I'm at God and not stretch ourselves not grow as much as God might Want us to grow? Yeah, that's a good word And this is gonna be a problem for them later on when we get to the book of Joshua They're gonna have to work hard to say hey, we're part of the team, too Yeah, please don't don't think that we're not we're gonna build something and make it evident that we're part of team Israel Because there's confusion now because they're on the other side. That's gonna be Joshua 22. We'll see that soon enough. But for now This is probably, I agree. This is probably a bad move for them. Hey, let's pray. And then we'll be done with this episode. God, give us a heart of wisdom and humility as we read difficult things in the scriptures, as we're going to come across a lot of it, even with the conquest of the promised land. And in other situations, we don't want to sit in judgment over your word. We want to sit under your word and be instructed by it. And we want to be careful not to hold you to a fallen broken man made standard of what we deem is right and just and fair. And so God help us to work through still hard things. And we may be uncomfortable and yet help us to find a confidence in you enough to say, God we don't necessarily like this. It's not the way that we wish it was, but we trust that it's the way that you've deemed it to be and that it's good as a result of that. So we ask this and pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading the Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. See you then. Bye.

Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast. We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word. If it has, if you would subscribe to this podcast, leave a like, leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome. If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org. And we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the daily Bible podcast.