Numbers 31:12-24

Good morning and morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions this morning. We're at numbers chapter 31 verses 12 through 24 I got some tea here instead of coffee because I have a little bit of laryngitis going on. So Nathan's gonna be doing the reading I'll just ask some questions and we'll kind of keep going So we're at the return from war when they took vengeance on the Midianites. Let's have some tea coffee, whatever you're drinking We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word I would offer you my tea, but I don't think you want what I got. All right, let's go ahead and pray.
I have a bit of what you got. Yeah. Do you want to pray? Sure. Okay. God, thank you for a great day. Please help us to learn about you and to know what we should do and to live by your rules. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Numbers 31, 12 through 24. I'm going to have you read it. Okay. Okay. It might be helpful to use your fingertip to pay attention. Go ahead.
Then they brought the captives, the booty, and the spoil to Moses, to Eliezer the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho. And Moses, Eliezer the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was angry with the officers of the army, with captains over the thousands and captains over the hundreds who had come from the battle. And Moses said to them, Have you kept all the women alive? Look, these women cause the children Israel to the council of Balaam to trespass against the Lord.
In just past against the Lord in In the innocent Incident of pure and there was a plague among the congregation of blood now therefore Kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman who has known a man in intimately meaning who kill every woman who has had sex with a man and But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.
And as for you, remain outside of the camp seven days. Seven days, whoever has killed any person, whoever has touched any slain, purify yourself, your captives, and on the seventh day, purify even every garment, everything made of leather, everything woven of goat's hair, and everything made of wood. Then a liaison of the priests said to the men of war who had gone to the battle, this is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses, only the gold, the silver, bronze, the iron, tin and the lead, everything that can endure fire, you shall put through the fire and it shall be clean. And it shall be purified with the water of purification. But all that cannot endure the fire, you shall put through water and you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and be clean. And afterward, you may come into the camp. Okay. So we'll stop there. We need to ask ourselves our three questions.
A. What is this about?
B. What is the best for us to summarize? And C. What do we call do? Oh, you accidentally closed your Bible, didn't you? All right. So numbers 31, 12 through 24. All right. So what do you think this is about? There's kind of two things in here. I would split this up differently if it were me, but that's fine. The fourth part, I think, is they come in and Moses is not happy. Yeah. Okay. Why is Moses not happy? Because they've revenged against the kingdom.
They brought in the disease. Now they brought in the disease. What do you mean they brought in the disease? So they brought in the women. So the women are a disease? We should eradicate all women? No, they brought in the same people who They're avenging. Yeah, so they're taking vengeance against the Midianites. Why? Because they tricked them. They didn't trick them so much as they enticed them. Who is the one who gave them this council to entice them?
Baelum. Baelum, right. So Baelum's the one who... what was kind of Baelum's thing? We can trick them and then we can kind of just Get into them. Good. Yeah, right. And if their men started to have sex with your women, what would they do? They'd start watching. There you go. Yeah, right. Yeah. Did that go well? It depends who started talking about it. Did it work well? Yeah. Yeah, sure. It worked well. Did it end well? No. Why not? Because... What did God send? I don't think it was you.
Okay, so it was a plague. He sent a plague upon them. So they've got this plague killing thousands of people. It's got to stop. They do it by, by getting rid of these Midianite women, right? Now they go to war and they come back from war against the Midianites. And what did they bring with them? The same women. So what does Moses say?
Then kill all the males children and then not all the male children all the males and all of them Yeah, right. So the virgins, the girls who haven't had sex with men, you will keep those, right? They're innocent. They didn't have any part in this play in Balaam's whole deceit. But for those who have, they were part of this rebellion. They're guilty against the Lord. That was treason against Jehovah. No, they're not allowed to be a part of your camp.
So is this just? Yes. Yeah, back then, right? Would it be just for you to just start going and killing people? No. Why not? Because that's not what God said to do. Yeah, right. Has God told you to do that? No. No. Did God tell them to do this? Yeah. Yeah, right. Big difference. Big difference, right?
We don't have a divine command by God, go kill these specific people. Am I allowed to do that? No, it seems like God has like these two commands. He's got a man. That's just like It's a command that goes on like, you gotta follow this command if you want it to go well with you. Then he's also got commands that's like, you do this right now, but like, don't repeat. I'm telling you, I'm giving you some special permission. Good, right. Specific instances, right. Circumstantial commands versus like 10 commandments, broad commands. Like if you said you can get some candy, it doesn't mean I can always just get some candy. It just means that part of them. I eat up some candy once.
Exactly. Right. But if I said, Hey, anytime you want to go to the candy jar, go for it. Then I would. Exactly. Right. So, so you're exactly right with that. Well, the next thing, uh, part of this passage though, right. Is so after the whole women debacle is talked about, what does he talk about next? All right. Right.
So there's cleansing for themselves and for what else? Was it metal? Yeah, all the stuff, right? So they got, they got clothes and they got glasses. I don't think they got glasses. They weren't open yet, but they might've gotten silver and pots and pans and dishes and all that stuff.
Right. And that's all got to be purified. And he talks about how people are purified. Kind of interesting how they think of pure, like when they think of God's way of purifying metal is putting through the fire. Mmm. What does that do with stuff like that? Disease impurities, right? Uncleanness.
It's more, this is more about ritual purity. It is then necessarily about like germ theory. Let's go ahead and talk about B best first. What's the best verse. Um, let's see. This might be a hard one. You want to know what I have underlined? 16 and 13? I have 15 and 16. Yeah, but 13 would be good too. Good.
Well, if you're watching online, tell us, what would you underline in your Bible as the best verse? Well, let's get to some application C calling. What are we called to do? Do you think there's a general principle here we can follow? Or how does this point us to Christ? What do you think?
Yeah, okay, so let's talk about the first section right What should we be careful about with people like Balaam? Once he made a plan that He figured out a plan that kept walking over again. So you have to be careful that it's all gone and it's not coming back. Yeah, Jesus actually talks about this in the book of Revelation. With the sins of the Nicolaitans, they follow the same deceit as Balaam. So go and marry non-Christian women and serve their gods.
Do you think there's a principle for us? What do you think the principle might be? What about the issue about like sexual immorality Do you think people would still like to trip up Christians with all sorts of sexual immorality? Oh yeah, absolutely, right? We've talked about good pictures and bad pictures, pornography, things like that, right?
This is something that people regularly put out, trying to trip men and women up. And so we just gotta be careful about that, right? We gotta have our heads on our shoulders. Our eyes fixed on Christ and our heads on our shoulders. The second part, Right.
Did that mean that you always wash your dishes after you eat? Yeah. No, but the things that are devoted to the Lord, give them to the Lord. But you should wash your dishes. You should wash your dishes. All right. Do you mind praying for us? Sure. Okay.
God, thank you for a good day. Please help us to walk away. each getting an application, knowing what we should do, and knowing how God applies that to our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. May God bless you as you walk after Him. May you endure temptation, bearing it up, because God is able to strengthen you. And when that time of temptation comes, I pray that the Spirit would give you wisdom to flee, finding the way of escape. We'll see you next time. Say bye. Bye. Bye.