The Command To Drive Out The Canaanites (Overview of Numbers Chapters 31-36)

The Command to Take Vengeance on Midian

Tonight we're gonna be finishing up the book of Numbers. So I think we've had about 20 lessons on this book so far. That's more than I was expecting. I thought we would go through Numbers pretty quick, but there's so many great accounts and some of the most important and well-known stories of Israel and their history actually come from the book of Numbers.

So we spent a good amount of time, but tonight we're just gonna finish up with an overview of chapters 31 through 36. So go ahead and open to chapter 31. Numbers 31 sort of ties up some loose ends, put it that way.

It's connected to a lot of other passages we've already looked at in Numbers. And not least among them is God's command to attack the Midianites. Who remembers when we talked about the Midianites last?

So the story of Balaam in chapters 22 through 24, Balaam was working on behalf of the king of the Midianites. So now it's God's vengeance based on or for that event. So let's look at Numbers 31, one through four.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "'Take vengeance on the Midianites "'for the children of Israel. "'Afterward, you shall be gathered to your people.'. "'So Moses spoke to the people saying, "'Arm some of yourselves for war "'and let them go against the Midianites "'to take vengeance for the Lord on Midian.

"'A thousand from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel, "'you shall send to the war.'". So God is sending Moses out on one last mission. You know what he said, "'Take vengeance, afterward,' what? "'You shall be gathered to your people.'".

So this is the last campaign for Moses. We know who takes over after Moses. Who is that? Joshua. Joshua. So the Israelites are going to wage what some people call holy war. Why is it called holy war? Number one, it's God who's commanding them directly to do it.

Number two, they are to, according to verse six, take some of the holy articles out to war with them. And we read in verse eight that in this battle, the false prophet Balaam, who we just talked about, Balaam is killed by the sword here.

So they defeat the Midianites in battle. They divide the spoils between the people, the priests and the Levites. And that's basically what chapter 31 is all about. Okay, so there's this battle between Israel and the Midianites.

And we've pointed out before, while in the Old Testament, there are these physical battles, because why? Israel's a physical nation. So there's gonna be physical battles. But in the New Testament, the church in 1 Peter chapter two is described as a spiritual nation.

Therefore, the battles that we fight today are spiritual battles. So the only holy war that we would wage today are against principalities and powers and against the rulers of darkness, the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness.

This comes from Ephesians six. And what else does Ephesians six say? That we are to put on the whole armor of God, where the only offensive weapon that we have, they went out with literal swords and javelins and everything else, but the only weapon that we have is what?

The word of God. Yeah, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And it doesn't say that we're supposed to do battle. It just says, stand here and be ready. Does it? Does it say that? That's just a paraphrase, but. Yeah. It doesn't say, I mean, yes, you have to fight the good fight,.

Which is defending the word of God. Yeah, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities. So we're at least wrestling. Now about the sword thing, Jesus did tell his disciples to go out and get a sword, go out and buy a sword.

So we do believe in self-defense, but the warfare that we wage is really a warfare of ideas. We're fighting a battle of worldview, right? The world thinks one way and believes one way. Christians believe a different way.

And we are trying to defeat them by hopefully winning them over. But that's the battle that we fight. It's a spiritual battle. And our weapon is God's word. All right, the New King James Version, Titles chapter 32, the tribes settling east of the Jordan.

Settling East of the Jordan Instead of Entering the Promised Land

Now what's the problem with settling east of the Jordan? Yeah, the promised land is on the other side. So that's the issue. Remember Israel, at this point, they have not yet crossed the Jordan River. That happens in the book of Joshua.

They have not yet gone into the promised land. So here you have the tribes of Reuben and Gad. And then later on, the half tribe of Manasseh. They have all this livestock. So they start looking around where they are in the plains of Moab and that area.

And they start to think, hey, you know, this land's pretty good. Why do we need to cross the Jordan and go into the promised land? We can just stay right here. What's the problem with that? Yeah, that's not what God told them to do.

That's not what God wants. He wants them to enter into the land that he gave to Abraham and his descendants. So now Moses is getting a little worried because he remembers the last time people were reluctant to enter the land all those years earlier.

And he's starting to think this is a repeat of events. So in order for Gad and Reuben to stay there, they had to get permission. Because they know this isn't what God said. So they go to Moses, look at verses six and seven.

And Moses said to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, "'Shall your brethren go to war while you sit here? "'Now why will you discourage the heart "'of the children of Israel from going over into the land "'which the Lord has given them?'.

So Moses remembers almost 40 years earlier when the people were discouraged by, remember the 10 spies who gave the bad report and that there's giants in the land and there's no way we can defeat these people.

And that had an effect on the whole group and they didn't wanna enter in. So now when these two tribes or two and a half tribes say, well, we don't wanna go in now, Moses is worried that this is gonna spread because this is gonna be quite an undertaking.

And if you're missing two tribes, I mean, that's a lot of soldiers. So Moses isn't very happy about this. But one spiritual takeaway I think is that these tribes were content with good enough. God's best was across the Jordan, but they were content with good enough.

Instead of full obedience, they thought that they could carve out a comfortable existence for themselves amongst the heathen. I think a lot of Christians do that. Instead of fully obeying God and experiencing God's best, we kind of get stuck where we are, comfortable where we are, and well, this is good enough.

And then when other Christians see the complacency and that people aren't really obeying God fully, that has a discouraging effect on everybody else. So we want to resist that. We want to move forward, just like they should have crossed the Jordan and been ready to fight those battles.

We need to fight those spiritual battles in our life. Thankfully, there's a resolution to this. Look at verses 20 through 23. Then Moses said to them, if you do this thing, if you arm yourselves before the Lord for the war and all of your armed men cross the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven out his enemies before him and the land is subdued before the Lord, then afterward you may return and be blameless before the Lord and before Israel.

And this land shall be your possession before the Lord. So Moses is kind of making a deal with them. Okay, if you want this land, you can have it, but you still have to cross the Jordan and fight with your brother or fight alongside your brother.

But look at verse 23, he says, but if you do not do so, like if you don't keep your end of the bargain here, then take note where you have sinned against the Lord and be sure that what? Your sin will find you out.

So if you stay here and you don't go to battle, you think you're gonna be blessed in this land, but you're not, God's gonna pay you back for this. All right, so that's one lesson we wanna take away from this.

We want to enter into the promised land, spiritually speaking, we want God's best. And that requires that we do things God's way and not do it halfway. All right, any comments or questions before we go to the next chapter?

All right, moving on to chapter 33, this section is titled Israel's Journey from Egypt Reviewed. We're just gonna do a kind of a quick overview on this. John MacArthur writes this about verses one through 49.

The Lord commanded Moses to write a list of Israel's encampments between Egypt and the plains of Moab. Significantly, 40 places were mentioned. Now, why is that significant? Right, because they've been wandering in the wilderness 40 years.

So 40 places are mentioned, not including Ramses and the plains of Moab, so where they began and where they ended. So this reflects the 40 years spent in the wilderness, good. Some sites recorded earlier are not listed and other sites are only mentioned here.

And he says, the God who led the Israelites in the conquest of Canaan was the one who had led them through the wilderness. And now in verses 50 through 56, this stands out to me as maybe the most significant passage of this whole study.

Of chapters 31 through 36, I wanna kind of zero in on this passage. Starting in verse 50. Now, the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you.

Notice that, he says, drive out all of them. He doesn't say some of them or the ones that give you grief. He says, drive them all out. Destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images and demolish all their high places.

And you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it. For I have given you the land to possess and you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families. To the larger, you shall give larger inheritance.

To the smaller, you shall give a smaller inheritance. There, everyone's inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. Remember, we talked about the casting of lots, which I kind of compared to rolling dice, although that might not be what it is.

We don't really know. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers, verse 55. But notice there's always conditions. With God's law, remember, the covenant is if you obey, you'll be blessed.

But if you disobey, right. So he says, but if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides.

And they shall harass you in the land where you dwell. Moreover, it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them. Now that's a pretty serious warning. I think we know Israel's history, what ended up happening.

And it's still happening. Yeah, they didn't do what God said. Again and again and again. So while Israel does end up taking the land and they do spare many, they wipe out a lot of the tribes, but they spare quite a few.

I mean, just think about King David. What was it, 500 years later, give or take, when he took Jerusalem as the capital city, who did David have to defeat in his army? He had to defeat the Jebusites. Well, the Jebusites should have been gone from the start, but no, they left these people there.

So it was just a constant struggle throughout Israel's history. They were, these tribes, a thorn in their side. Why? Because Israel failed to obey the initial act of obedience. So, I mean, the applications right themselves at this point.

You know, if we don't do things right from the start, there's gonna be consequences all along the way. Yeah, so if we cut corners, partial obedience to God is disobedience. Israel took out many of the tribes.

They had many high points in their history. They were blessed throughout their history, but because they didn't do things God's way, I think of the book of Judges. It's just one constant cycle. They're dealing with these tribes that they left behind.

So going into the promised land, what are they supposed to do? What are they supposed to do? Yeah, wipe out everybody, no exceptions. Yeah, because you think about it, throughout the land, there's all these worship sites to false gods.

So you got to destroy those places as well. This is a full do-over for God's people. This is your land now.

Yes, Ray. More than people said to drive it out. It didn't have to. No, if they ran far enough away, then.

Yeah, I mean, I guess if they high-tailed it and ran and you didn't have to fight them, why is there out of the land, I suppose? But that typically wasn't the case. It should have been right to the end.

Now, admittedly, a lot of people, like what Jim was saying earlier about how they killed a lot of the people and then God, Moses said, no, you got to kill more. So a lot of modern Christians, you know, and I've heard people throughout the years and they say, oh, it's so terrible that God would tell them to do such a, how can God say this?

Not my God, don't say not my God, he's a loving God. I mean, I understand, it's pretty,.

We're not used to this kind of a thing. So to think about it, you know, I do get where they're coming from. But to just try to make a parallel, I don't hear a lot of Americans crying about how we defeated Nazi Germany and, oh, look at what we did to all these poor Nazis.

I've never heard anyone say that. So why is it that we would second guess God if he doesn't know what he's doing when they were told to go in and wipe out the Canaanite tribes? Well, there's no comparison.

Yeah, there is, because the Canaanites were cruel, very cruel. They would sacrifice their own children in the fire. We've talked about that. They worshiped, essentially, they worshiped demons. So they, God knows what he's doing.

He wants them all gone. But at the same time, there was opportunity as the children of Israel moved in, the Canaanites could technically, at least some individuals, could convert and become part of Israel if they abandoned the wicked nation or tribe they were part of.

Can you think of someone who did that? Rahab. Ruth. Right, yeah, Ruth did it. Of course, that was after the conquest, but the first city that they attack is Jericho. And who's in Jericho? Rahab is. Rahab is fearful.

She hears all these stories. The people of the city are terrified. Rahab says, I wanna be with them. So Rahab converts and joins the nation. So I would just say this, that there was an opportunity for individuals to desert and go with God's people.

I mean, at least it happened with her. So in the Lord's eyes, I think there's always room for people to change sides. And speaking of the spiritual warfare that we fight, we can't view them, people that are promoting all sorts of terrible things, we don't wanna just view them as the enemy.

We wanna view them as the mission field. Now, they may want to be the enemy of Christ and God's people, but we want individuals to abandon the world and come with us, right? All right, any questions before we move on to Numbers 34?

The Boundaries of the Promised Land and God’s Use of the Small

All right, Numbers 34, verses one and two, it says, then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, command the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan to its boundaries.

So God has already promised them the land, but now he's marking out the borders. So, okay, how do we know where our land starts and ends? So now he's giving them the parameters. How many of you know how big Israel is?

Does anyone know? Small. It's small compared to other countries. I'm not sure what it was supposed to be.

Either way. Well, the promised land is a lot bigger than what they have. Right.

Yeah, so this is another thing. God tells them, take the land, here's the borders, and they never really get it all, do they? They get a lot of it, maybe most of it, but yeah. I looked up some numbers.

One commentator said that the promised land was 160 miles in length and then 50 miles in breadth. To me, that sounds small. I looked up another source that said 260 miles long and 71 miles wide in its largest spot.

I'm sure there's some comparison. Maybe Israel is the size of the state of? Rhode Island. Alabama. I think it's bigger than Rhode Island, but yeah, it's. Massachusetts. Massachusetts, I think. Okay, is it?

Yeah, so if you think of that, that's a whole country. Size of Massachusetts. Compared to other nations, that is pretty small. And that's the amazing thing, that God did so much with this tiny plot of land.

And the Lord uses this small nation to make his name known throughout the whole world. But this is really the way God works, isn't it? He uses the small things. He uses maybe the insignificant things in the eyes of the world.

That's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, that God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. So I'd like to think of it this way, that we have a small church compared to some of the larger churches that's throughout the state or throughout New England.

Okay, we have a small church, but that doesn't mean we can't do big things, is it? Why? Because we have a big God. So if we're faithful to him, God can do big things with a little group. So Israel is a very, very small plot of land.

And why does God work that way? Why did he choose Israel? They were the least, right? They were the smallest. And he does it so that they won't get the glory. I mean, if he did a work through us, we really can't claim to be anything special.

It'd be so that God gets all the glory. All right, so when the surrounding nations heard about Israel, what did they do? When they heard about Israel, it wasn't Israel. It was, they heard about what their God had done.

So they heard about God parting the Red Sea. So when they come to Jericho, all the people in the city are, it says that they became fainthearted because they heard about what the Lord had done to Egypt, which was the biggest empire or the primary empire in the world at that time.

So they became fainthearted. What's another term for fainthearted? What? Scared. Scared. They were scared when they heard about God and the things that he did. Oh, that's another thing. People shouldn't be afraid of God.

God's just a big softy in heaven looking to answer all your prayers. He's like Santa Claus, right? We just pray to God and give him our to-do list and he's there to make us happy. Is that the way it is?

That's the way a lot of people view God today, I fear. But that's the thing, we should, or people should fear God. What's the, read my mind in Proverbs. The, yeah. Fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord. Beginning of wisdom.

Is the beginning of wisdom. So if somebody does not fear God, what does that tell you? They have no wisdom.

He's God's worthy of fear. Yeah.

Yeah, they lack wisdom. They're terribly misguided on who God is, not fearing him. Yeah, but you actually have Christians today. And I know there's verses that perfect love, casts out all fear. And we should not fear God.

There's a healthy fear that Christians should have towards God. But there are Christians today who will actually tell unbelievers that God's love is unconditional and that there's no reason to fear God.

Or fear of God is viewed as sort of a negative thing. Well, I don't think that's true because when Moses and Joshua, they weren't preaching God so loved the Egyptians. That really wasn't the message, was it?

Or God's love is unconditional towards the Amorites. Says no Bible verse ever. Or God loved the people of Jericho and had a wonderful plan for their life. You know, that wasn't the message going in, was it?

So of course the Bible says, God so loved the world. Amen. But for the heathen who know that God exists and they reject him, we love John 3 .16, but what? Don't forget about John 3 .36, that God's wrath abides upon unbelievers.

And that is a fearful thing. So it's like with anything in the Bible, there's two ends of the spectrum and you have to preach both. And I think here in Numbers, we have seen both. We've seen God's anger.

Haven't we seen God get angry? Like a lot. He's getting angry, it seems, every other chapter. But we also see at the same time, God's mercy and his great love on the children of Israel. Yes.

There's a difference between being afraid of God and fear of God. Okay. And I was in a Bible study one time where there was a gentleman saying, you cannot be angry with God because God knows all that he's doing.

And I believe that there's a difference between being afraid of God and fear of God. Okay. Because God is, he's a loving God, yes, but he's also the judge and he will take care of everything in the end of what people believe that they're not obeying and he's gonna punish them.

Right. Okay, so you're saying that there's a difference between being afraid of God and having the fear of God. Okay. Anyone wanna elaborate on that or what do you think? I mean, yeah, there's an unhealthy kind of a fear that believers certainly shouldn't have.

But the Bible has a lot to say about the fear of God. Christian people in general up until the last century were called, you know, regarded as a God-fearing people. That's not really something that's said much anymore, but you have God's love and you have his wrath.

So it's one God, but two different attributes. God's people, we are to proclaim both and every human being has a choice and a person's choice will determine the attribute of God that they experience. So for the one who believes and humbles themselves before God, God is a loving and gracious heavenly father.

But for the one who is stiff-necked and rebels against God, to them, God is a consuming fire. God is both things at the same time, but it depends on our attitude and how we approach him. Make sense? All right, speaking of God's compassion and mercy, I think we see that brought out in chapter 35.

Cities of Refuge and the Marriage of Female Heirs

We're almost done. This is the account of the cities of refuge. So remember the Levites did not inherit any land, but the Levites did get cities of their own. So the Levites got 48 cities in all, and six of those cities, which were scattered throughout the land, were to be cities of refuge.

So what's a city of refuge? Today, we would call it manslaughter, but if somebody killed someone else accidentally, revenge killing was a big problem in the ancient world. So if you accidentally killed someone, there's a pretty good chance their friend or family member would try to find you and kill you by sundown.

So God, because he's concerned with justice, and that's not really fair, he develops this system of the cities of refuge. So that's what chapter 35 is about. And then chapter 36 is titled Marriage of Female Heirs.

And it goes back to the subject of the daughters of Zelopheb. And you remember how the women, their father died, there was only female, he only had daughters, so they were worried that they were gonna lose their father's inheritance and might go to another tribe.

And they brought this to Moses, and Moses actually brings it to God, and they were given these rights to keep their inheritance in the tribe of their father's family. So in conclusion, based on all of that, the Lord's plan is to uproot the heathen and to establish a nation where, number one, the one true God is worship, number two, there's justice, and this would be a nation, ideally, where righteousness would flourish.

There'd be justice in the land as opposed to what had been there all that time before. Cruelty, injustice, corruption, false gods, God's starting something new with the Israelites in the promised land.

But they had to obey, and we know that they didn't quite measure up. But the book of Numbers ends here with these words in chapter 36, verse 13. These are the commandments and the judgments which the Lord commanded the children of Israel by the hand of Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan, across from Jericho.