Numbers (Session 6) Chapters 21-25

Oh well our outline today you know first couple of first session was about the camp of Israel y'all remember that and then the tabernacle preparation of the camp then the trip from Sinai to Kadesh Barnea and it was a kiddush Burnie of course they had their moment of truth so to speak when they failed to enter the land and thus and then condemned if you will to 38 years of exile and we're last time we continue that from Kadesh Barnea to the plains of Moab so what we're gonna deal with tonight is their engagement with mom a recall last time well let's say I think I've got a map but we'll look at that they had to go around eat them and so forth so we're going to tonight talk about that we're going to encounter the famous brazen serpent episode which is is an example of the lessons that are in here for you and I this is not just a study in Old Testament history for the sake of understanding the Old Testament rather there are applications all through here for you and I and then we want to emphasize that as we go but we're going to engage three different groups so I'm the king of the amorite s' they take on they take AAG the king of the Giants we'll talk about that strange episode and then we encounter one of the strangest characters in the entire Old Testament Balaam the prophet a pagan prophet used by God and then there's a final idolatry show which will close out the evening you may recall as they left Egypt they went to Mount Sinai we hold the view that it was Jabal al lawz the real Mount Sinai I won't go through all of that again but that's our that's that's what this would would assume here but then they traveled up to ultimately to Kadish Barnea and that was where the they sent him the spies the 10 were terrified and the majority went with them Joshua and Caleb was unsuccessful at getting people to step out by faith and God so God condemned them then to that they would be wandering for 30 years they ignored that after that big confrontation they went against him anyway and got clobbered at hormone and had to come back so that's sort of where we are numbers chapter 21 verse 1 when the king air at the Canaanite which dwelt in the South heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners and Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord and said if thou wilt indeed deliver this people in my hand then I will utter ly destroy their cities and the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites and they utterly destroyed them in their cities and he called the name of the place Hormuz so it occurred at the same place in fact that's probably the reason that place name was emphasized back in the in the previous lesson is because it becomes famous not just because they got defeated then but the ultimate ultimately have a a success later yeah anyway they journeyed from Mount hor by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land of Edom and the soul of people was much discouraged because of the way you may recall that they were they they petitioned and were denied using the king's highway to cut through eat them and go around the long way and they're very discouraged by that and they got so discouraged they they start murmuring again we can make a list of the murmurings how many murmurings are recorded in the scripture 7 good guess right on and the people spake against God and against Moses wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness does that refrain some echo we've heard that again on the end there they're already always convinced that God brought them into the wilderness to die for there's no bread neither is there any water and our soul loathes this light bread so they're obviously tired of the manna muffins the manna pancakes and then you know and so on the manicotti is Manischewitz the alligator the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people and much people of Israel died so it's a brief mention but these serpents are deadly they're infested and causing havoc and the people came to Moses said we have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord but they apparently figured that out finally and against thee yes the Lord and against Moses praying to the Lord that he may take away the Serpent's from us and Moses prayed for the people a pattern that we want well recognized by now except God does a very weird thing Lord said unto Moses make me a fiery serpent that's the translation it's actually brass brass was the metal that was common to them that could sustain heat that's why the brazen altar and so forth so a brass serpent is what it really is Malou Dean to here make me if I were servant set it upon a pole and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it shall live and Moses made a serpent of brass put it up on a pole it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived and I'm sure they were very grateful but as we stand back and watch this you have to recognize don't let its familiarity deny you the reality that this is a strange remedy for the occasion they've got enough serpents around why have another breast one and putting up on a pole so you look at it it's going to make you well you know the whole the whole thing is strange and what's interesting you can study the Old Testament to death and not find any explanation as to why this weird remedy was proposed by God on their behalf and now the reason we're studying the Book of Numbers as I mentioned earlier isn't just to get more familiar with the history of the Old Testament that's worthy and that's worth doing but that's we have far more at issue here than that Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians 10 now all these things happened unto them for examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come in other words is the word examples here in the Greek is two posts from which we get the term type what do I mean by a type a figure and image a pattern a prefiguring we in engineering we speak of a prototype there are all kinds of types a common term in our vocabulary normally the term model is a model of this a model of that we make a mathematical model of an airplane wing to see if it's going to fly we'd make a mathematical model of an oilfield to find its yield and so forth so those are we think of models but that the literary term is type it's a pattern see for the Western mind prophecy is a prediction and fulfillment prediction and fulfillment not to the Jewish mind to the Hebrew mind prophecy is pattern and this is an example of one of those we don't understand this brass serpent thing until we get to John chapter three in the New Testament and Jesus himself explains it it's the only explanation in the Bible as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up literally same deal that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life or have eternal life for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life so this event and his explanation gives rise to the most famous verse in the entire Bible John 3:16 in fact to really nail the point home the following couple of verses God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved men are not lost because they reject Christ they're lost because they're sinners they're conditioned is lost is there to begin with either believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God there's only there was only one way that the people in Noah's day should be in motion in Moses day that the people in Moses day could be saved it wasn't with a snake pit kid it was - look and on the this brass serpent on the hill brass because it can say stain judgment a serpents the sign of sin so we have sinned judged as the idiom that's put here and that's exactly what Jesus Christ the scripture tells us that he became sin for us we have no idea what that means we can't possibly conceive how a perfect God could be made sin on our behalf but he was this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil that word loved their surprising enough is agape agape Oh to be totally given over to the means of salvation is you could one of the assignment you might make for yourself is to make a list of the parallels between the serpent the brass serpent that Moses put on the hill and Jesus on the cross there was a universal need in both cases in one case they were getting but they had a need they were getting killed in other case we have a universal knee because of sin the wages of sin is death God did not have to provide a remedy the Serpent's were a judgment that was due but by His grace he provided a remedy a remedy that was available by faith alone nothing he had to do no special diet all you had to do is look and trust that serpent on the hill there was one remedy for all what it only took one serpent on the pole for the entire population it was it was sufficient and by faith alone it was free there was no charge there's no five shekel tax to the tabernacle if you know nothing like that and of course it's sufficient and Christ is sufficient I've listed here six deliberately leaving it incomplete what I suggested some of the commentaries will list a dozen a dozen ways that this event in numbers 21 foreshadows the the cross but the main thing I want you to realize is that this is an example of what I call up mutton would you call the computer field of microcode an anticipatory code this makes absolutely no sense in numbers 21 until you get to the New Testament because it's a foreshadowing of the cross which means the guy writing the package knew the end from the beginning the this the presence of this passage where it is in the Old Testament is a testimony to the supernatural origin of the scripture when you think it through it's an anticipatory code let's move on numbers back to numbers 21 and the children's will set forward and pitch at obe off and they journey from Opeth and pitch that dream in the wilderness which is before Moab toward the Sun rising in other words to the east and from thence they moved and pitched in the valley of Hazara now this will give you a rough picture when they as they because they were not allowed to go through eat'em that dark line vertically on the map is the king's highway but the would not let them use it so they had to go around Edom which they've done and they're now at either bream at Moab and they're gonna head north a little bit to are here shortly but they're now in the land of Moab you don't have to memorize the map but it's useful if you recognize the general regions from the South there's Midian that's where the burning bush was and all of that and and so forth as you go north you run into the eat to eat them there is a river the Arnon River which is the southern end of the Dead Sea which is the boundary between Edom and Moab as you keep going north you jet you get into the through the more lights you get to the area of the amorite sand north of the ammonites is the area called Gilead or also called Bashan okay so if you can get a feeling for the regions obviously Bashan is north and east of the galaxy of galilee the amorite SAR east of this sea of galilee all the way from the in that general region and you'll get a feeling for it and we'll talk more about it as they work their way up to the north they're going to head from DJ bream to our and shortly here in ferments they removed and pitched on the other side of the Arnon which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coast of the Amorite sranan is the border of moab between Moab and the amorite s-- where Firdous said in the book of the Wars of the Lord what he did in the Red Sea and the book said Brooks of Arden at the stream of the Brooks that goeth down the dwelling of our and life upon the border Moab and from vents they went to beer that is the well where of the Lord spoke a spike on the Moses gather people together and I will give them water then Israel sang this song we're going to find twice in this chapter in this passages a song or a literary allusion this is one of them Israel sang the song spring up a well sing into it the princess dig the well the nobles of the people digged it and by the direction of the lawgiver and their staves and from the wilderness they went to Madonna and from eternity enough ahead Naha leo and from the hello to Bob MF and from Bay most in the valley that is in the country more to the top of Pisgah which looketh toward Jessamine Mount Pisgah is the right designation now the town is so I mean the Mount Pisgah is so sort of a ridge and there isn't any prominent peak so the regions of the Mount are designated by the towns that are at the foot near that peak and one of the towns that's near Mount Pisgah is a town called Nebo so many Bible helps will refer to this as Mount Nebo but that's that's a bit perhaps a technicality because but it's Mount Pisgah is the right knee and knee bow is the town one of several towns that's nearby but now that we're at Pisgah I'll show you some of the map here shortly Israel sent messengers to Sion the king of the amorite saying there the amorite SAR north of Moab right and the they sent messages on the king of em right saying let me pass through the land thy land we will not turn into the fields nor into the vineyards we will not drink of the waters of the well but we will go along by the Kings Highway until we pass thy borders until we be past the borders this may sound familiar to you this is the same petition they gave whom the remember the wouldn't let them pass so they went around them here they get the same response sign would not suffer israel to pass through his border but sahan gathered all his people together and went out against Israel in the wilderness and he came to J has and fought against and Azrael smote him with the edge of the sword possessed his land for mourning to Jabbok even to the children of ammon for the border of the children of Ammon was strong the brook Jabbok which is halfway through the Dead Sea there is the other border anyway so they take on them rights and they slaughter them could they have done that to eat him and if so why didn't they anybody know the end this is a serious question Edom was a relative you see he saw was Jacob's brother so they were forbidden to fight the email i'ts of the but the were talking em rights here and they took him on and if you get a feeling for it and the map you can see that Pisgah is just east of the northern east of the northern tip of the Dead Sea and they're up in that region there is a brook called gem ik which means pouring out or wrestling that's where Jacob wrestled back in the years before it was the boundary between the ammonites and the though they're giants up in Bashan we're gonna talk about them here shortly and it also would become the border between the tribe of reuben and the half tribe of manasseh after joshua conquers the land and that's where Reuben and Manasseh will be dwelling Israel took all these cities Israel dwelt in all the cities of the hem rights and heshbon and all the villages thereof how could they attack the emirates when they could attack Nima it's because they're not what relatives the emirates were fierce but they took him and and succeeded for heshbon was a city of sion the king of the amorite who had fought against the former king of Moab had taken all his land out of his hand even a narnun so something we hadn't covered the politics er sion had already conquered the Moabite so conquering them was legitimate because they weren't relatives the Moabites will find shortly are very terrified they had no reason to be because there are also relatives both okay at the ammonites and the mole were descendants of lot through incest of the daughters but still they were Israel was forbidden to take them on but the Moabites didn't know that or countenance in any case so anyway here we go any and some proverbs here wherefore they speak men speaking proverbs that's a phrase that's translated from what you and I would call simply a poet work for they that let the poets would say come on to Heshbon let the city of sion be built and prepared there is a fire going out of Heshbon aflame from the city of sion they'd have consumed our and Moab and the Lords of the high places of honor and woe unto the Moab thou art undone o people of shamash shamash was the god of the Moabites he hath given his sons that escaped and his daughters into captivity unto the king assigned the king of the emirates this was a poem that bemoaned the fact that moab was taken over by sion but now israel has taken over sion so they're echoing this in a and as a parody if you will because now they've taken over the ones that had taken that taken immobilize over we have shot at them Hezbollah is perished even on a diamond and we have laid them waste even into nofa which reaches under Madiba these are the cities right along there - just to the east of Pisco thus israel dwelt in the land of the Emirates and Moses sent to spy out Jays hurt and they took the villages thereof and drove out the ammonites that were there and they turned and went up by the way of Bashan now we're getting into a whole nother we've got the Scion deal taken care of now we're getting into a stranger place altogether they turn and went up by the way of Shawn that is what you and I would call the Golan Heights also in the scripture called Gilead and AAG the king of Bashan went out against them he and all his people to the battle at the dry it drives a major city right in the middle of the Bashan area and the Lord said unto Moses fear him not there was good reason for them to fear them I'll come to that in a minute but fear not for I have delivered him into thy hand and all his people and his land and thou shalt do to him as thou didst him to Sion the king of the amorite switch dwelt in heshbon what makes hog the king of Bashan so formidable well I'll get to that he so they smote him and his sons and all the people until there was none left him that loved him alive and they possessed his land this is described in more detail in Deuteronomy so I've inserted a few verses here from Deuteronomy chapter 3 which is going to be repetitive but a little more detail and we turned and went up the way to Bashan and AAG the kingdom as Shaun came out against us he and all his people to battle at a dry and the Lord said unto me fear him not for I will deliver him all his people in this land into thy hand and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst them to sign on the king of the EM rights which twelve heshbon so the Lord our God delivered into our hands ah gall so the king of Bashan and all his people and we smote him until none was left to him remaining this is in Deuteronomy Deuteronomy is basically a book of free sermons that Moses writes at the near the end of his life and he's just summarizing this history is then we took all his cities at that time there was not a city which we took not from them the threescore cities 60 cities were talking here and all the region of our gob the kingdom of OGG and Bashan all these cities were fenced with high walls gates and bars beside on walled towns a great many and we utterly destroyed them as we did unto Sion the king of Heshbon utterly destroying the men the women the children of every city but all the cattle and the spoil of the cities we took for a prey to ourselves and we took at that time out of the land of the kings of the Emirates the land that was on this side of the Jordan and he speaking on the east side now from the river varnon unto Mount Hermon now exposures disturbed with verse six that they destroyed the men the women and the children now if that doesn't offend you you weren't listening carefully that's genocide why on earth were they doing that it's important for us to understand this because there's some strange background we're going to come to and there's a some geographic things here Hermon and the citoyen it's called Syria and the ammonites call Cheniere all the cities of the plain and all Gilead and all Bashan they're essentially for our purposes equivalents and a Salak and a dry the cities of the kingdom of OGG in Bashan and only aughh the king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Giants now we're beginning to understand the problem here aughh was also listed in the scripture as the king of the Giants but they're not just Giants if there were just Giants that wouldn't be the total part that would only be part of the problem to give you some feeling if there really were Giants though he says behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron is it not in rabaa the shore of Ammon nine cubits was the length thereof and four cubits the breadth of it after the cubit of a man well how much is a cubit we usually use eighteen inches as an estimate it's from the elbow to the fingertip of course if you giant that's a little larger isn't it if we take if we take the typical cubit the foot and a half eighteen inch cubed that bedstead was six feet wide and 13 feet long okay and if you take some people it would argue it for a twenty 22 or 25 inch cubed then it could be as much as eight feet wide and 18 feet long these were formidable people the kingdom the Giants it's understandable why the Spy's back in numbers 13 were shook up when they surveyed the land because there were Nephilim in the land giants where'd they come from what's going on here and we want to talk about that a little bit you and I generally don't countenance the idea that there were real Giants they were in fact there's been a lot of giants Stephen quills another book on them and collected a lot of examples of giants these are all covered in our briefing package called the return of the Nephilim that's also know Genesis commentary but there are historical examples of very unusual 9 10 13 feet tall people and so for what it's worth continuing in Deuteronomy to finish this off and in and this land which we possess at that time from our to the river arnon and the half Mount chiliad and the cities that have gave eye to the rubra nights and the gadites that comes later of course and the rest of Gilead and all Bashan being the king of OGG gave AI unto the half tribe of Manasseh and all the region of our God with all is bhishan which was called the land of the Giants so all this in order to understand what's going on here we have to echo back a little bit and talk about Genesis chapter six and in Genesis chapter six I want first of all you to note in your notes that the first two verses are one sentence it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born of them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of which they chose although it chose the term sons of God Vinay Halloween in the Hebrew is a technical term we'll come back to and it really it's translated sons of God in the English and that's what it really means the sons of God but it's a it's a term used in the scripture to a bee to refer to a direct creation of God Adam was a direct creation of God you and I are not in the natural we are sons of Adam unless we're born again then he gives us the power to become the sons of God and the term is in the Old Testament used exclusively of angels and they saw the daughters of men not the daughters of Seth or any particularly were daughters of men in general but I um actually the daughters of Adam is what it really says then verse 4 of that same chapter says there were Nephilim in the earth in those days and also also after that when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bare children to them the same became the the mighty men the hoggie Berean if you will which were of old men of renown now it's these Nephilim Satan strategy here was to create hybrids and that's why God brought the flood was to deal with this issue the word Nephilim mean it means comes from the burden of fall it means the fallen ones these were hybrids half human half something else and so the the word in the Hebrew means the fallen ones from the fall to fall away or desert and they gave they also recalled the hoggie burying the mighty ones and every major culture on the planet Earth all the ancient cultures have legends of these same things occurring in the Septuagint Greek Septuagint Greek of this passage the word is gigantis from which the translators call them Giants they were Giants but that's not what the word jagannatha's means it comes from G Goss which means birth born but the same strange creatures now this view that I'm sharing with you is what's called the angel view of Genesis 6 it's the view of the ancient rabbis hell it's the view of the early church up until about the 5th century and it's not taught in seminaries today because it makes many people uncomfortable they teach a concept that these were just referring to the lines of Seth and Seth we're the good guys keen were the bad guys in the intermarried and we're supposed to all of that is you can shred from Scripture there's about 12 reputations of that and yet that's what's commonly taught but it's interesting that the view I'm presenting to you is confirmed in the New Testament in the least three places in Jude 6 and 7 first Peter 3 and also second Peter 2 and it confirms this view and I won't take the time to build the whole case but the early church fathers all held what I'll call the angel view here and also modern scholarship most of your competent conservative scholars recognize through what I'm calling here the angel view now what most people have gotten in if you're not familiar with all of this then I encourage you to get either get our briefing package called the return of the Nephilim because there's an endtime aspect to it also we cover it rather thoroughly in our commentary in the book of Genesis in chapter 6 obviously but there's an aspect of this that many people miss and that's the ref I mean in Genesis 6 verse 4 it says also after that and there are Nephilim after the flood the Nephilim that were present in Noah's day were wiped out in the flood no question about it but Satan is not through and when God told Abraham that his descendants would be away for four hundred years and then returned to the land he mentions all that in Genesis 17 when God announces that to Abraham that means Satan also picked up on that and Satan realized he had for centuries to lay down a minefield before the return of these people and that's why when you get to the book of Joshua there's a series of tribes that are God has instructs Joshua to wipe out every man woman child of these particular tribes and one of them were the referee and the ref am that he mean the harima and the some zooming were all labels of of tribes of the strength the word Ruffin Rafa means death these these are the Walking Dead if you will these are large guys but spiritually spiritually dead Harbor and anak the Anakim will run into the Anakim all through the Old Testament they were sons of anak and his seven sons called the Anakin there encountered and we also encountered them in numbers 13 already AAG the king of Bashan is called AAG the king of the Giants and Joshua makes reference that in Joshua 12 there's a guy by name of Goliath you may recall David had an episode with him and you may recall when he walked when he went across the brook he picked up five stones to put in the set one of them he took to bring Goliath down he had four more in his why did he pick up five because Goliath had four brothers he was ready for all five so but if you look you can look at the Bible as a drama of Satan's attempts to try to thwart the plan of God and it started and well but a couple of things earlier but primarily the corruption of Adam's line this whole strategy of the Nephilim was an attempt to corrupt the God announced that the line would that the man would be redeemed by a descendant of Adam and Eve and by corrupting that that chain Satan hope to thwart the plan of God the flood took care of that as God as he incrementally explains his plan of redemption he had allowed Satan to focus attacks then it got says you can do through Abraham seed so Edom a Abraham is singled out for special treatment the famine in Genesis 50 the destruction of the male line by Pharoah and Exodus one Pharaohs pursuit of Israel even after he let them go in Exodus 14 and of course here we're in counting the population of Canaan with these with the referee and as God explains that he's going to do it through David's line David's line gets specifically singled out by Satan and we find again and again the heirs to the throne being wiped out all that you but then there's a an infant hidden by a servant or something that always thoughts these plans and even when you get to the Persian Empire in the Haman when he tried to wipe out all Jews this is Satan behind the scenes trying to thwart it whether you're talking about Haman are we talking about Nazi Germany and get to the New Testament joseph was fear for Mary fearful for Mary and Matthew 1 Herod's attempts to wipe out all the babies in Bethlehem Nazareth when twice they tried to throw him off a cliff and so forth the storms at sea those were supernatural storms really that's why jesus said he rebuked the sea and so forth and of course the element one is the cross but the main point I'm making here is not to go through all this again just to point out Satan is not through he's still at it we need to understand why there's also a very strange verse I'll leave with you to think about when Jesus is hanging on the cross we have that description in Psalm 22 sound 22 reads as if it was dictated first person singular as he hung in the cross opens up with my God my God why hast thou forsaken me it opens and closes with his opening and closing words in effect but right in the middle of this thing in verse 12 apparently Jesus is is apparently saying many bowls have come past me strong Bulls of Bashan have beset me around what on earth is he talking about does he mean that they're cattle around the cross and if there were was that why would that bother him or is there something else what is the Bulls of Bashan what does it really mean I'll leave you with that to go search it out but I do want to share with you an enigma that you might find interesting what does the Golan Heights have run and the Gaza Strip have in common these were all areas that Joshua failed to completely exterminate the Rafah him Deuteronomy 20 and Joshua 15 and thus where if you do a map of Israel and study the book of Judges you'll find the area of Galan Janene Nablus Ramallah Jericho of course which means by the way better ah the house of the moon God and Jerusalem and Gaza these are the strongholds that Israel failed to completely defeat completely that to wipe out completely what's interesting these are the areas that today are still in dispute it's interesting that the capital of the amorite was Jericho that's where the Battle of Jericho is so important in Joshua 6 and following it's interesting that where is the PLO capital today in Jericho I think that's kind of interesting and the house of the moon-god which of course is what Muslim Islam is all about anyway I'll leave that with you lets us move back to where we're going we're in now numbers 22 we counter this strange character called the Prophet Balaam the children Israel set forward and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side of the Jordan by Jericho and I was speaking on the east side here and balak the son of zippor saw all that Israel had done to the amorite s-- now Balak was the word by the way means vain or empty he was not the hereditary king he was imposed on moab by sia cylon when zion had conquered them and so he apparently was allied with the Midianites who he infer from a number of things and but he had seen what's happened he saw Israel wipe out the amirite wipe out the the the Giants up in Bashan so he's terrified now interesting enough though he's the king of Moab he's not a Moabite he was a Moabite he might have known that Israel can't attack the Moabites because they're primitive - it was a but he's terrified he's seen how strong Israel is against these very very israel's conquered those that conquered him so he's really terrified so he realized that physical force is not going to work he's got a resort to supernatural means so he buys the services of what apparently was a well-known seer or prophet from Mesopotamia a God by name of Balaam and he wants him to come and curse Israel he thinks that's he apparently has got enough confidence in that to gamble his his his kingdom against it and he offers Balaam very obviously very fancy royalties for doing that and so but the Prophet Balaam even though he's a pagan prophet God deals with him he has connections somehow with God he's able to anyway God is God God chooses to deal with him okay and so balak the son of zippor saw that israel done for the amorite and Moab was sore afraid with people because there were many and Moab was distressed because the people of Israel and more upset of the elders of midians either affiliated with Midian somehow now shall this company lick up all that are around about us as the ox link of up the grass of the field and balak the son of zippor was king of the Moabites at that time he sent messages therefore to Balaam the son of Beor to pathar which is by the river of the land of the children his people to call him saying behold there is a people come out of Egypt behold they covered the face of the earth and they abide over against me and so so Balak is is resorting to this now Balaam is the son of Beor which in Kali is bass or or the word means destruction and kal din but pathar is on the afraid ease in Mesopotamia this is where this is this goes way way back obviously the history here they've made some discoveries by the way of the great the great city of mari in the afraid East Valley they've discovered all kinds of cuneiform tablets at Mari that revealed the the background of this cult of prophets and seers that resemble in many ways the career of Balaam they're still don't misunderstand they're still pagan but they're parallel here come now therefore I pray the curse means this people this is Bale acts commissioned to Balaam for they're too mighty for me peradventure I shall prevail that we may smite the that I may drive them out of the land for I wat that he whom thou blessed is blessed and he whom thou curses his curse so he apparently Balaam has quite a reputation enough so that he's Balak is willing to you know write a check so the elders of Moab the elders of million departed with the rewards of divination in their hand and they came unto balaam and spake unto him the words of Balak and he said of them Lodge here this night and I will bring you word again as the Lord shall speak unto me and the princes of Moab abode of Balaam in other words he's willing to be hired but he's going to find out what the Lord really wants him to do which is a strange contradiction he's paying the one hand yet he's doing the right thing and it may surprise you that there are Gentile appearances that God uses Gentiles but the same thing happened to Abimelech and girar in genesis 20 and you may recall God spoke to Abimelech about Sarah and so forth Pharaoh God talked to Pharaoh in his dreams that Joseph interprets in Genesis 41 and following God spoke to Nebuchadnezzar in his dreams and visions some of the most dramatic passages in the Book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar chapter 2 of Daniel chapter 4 so on Saul at the which and consults the which at Endor and God she herself is shook because she didn't bring up Samuel but Samuel shows up and it's very interesting passage in for Sam at 28 lent itself to a play high school play around Halloween time it's a way of doing something with that's biblical that it fits the occasion and of course the Magi were persons this they were meats if you will and yet God used them by Julian in Matthew 2 and so forth and I'm moving back to Balaam God came unto balaam and said what men are these with a and Balaam said of the god they lacked the son of zippor or the king of Moab hath sent unto me saying behold there's a people come out of Egypt which covered the face of the earth come now cursed be them for adventure I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out and God said unto beyond thou shalt not go with them thou shall not curse the people for they are blessed the beylin rose up in the morning and said of the princess of Balak get you into your hey man for the Lord refuses to give me leave to go with you see so far Balaam is doing all right yeah he's a pagan but he's he went to Lord Lord said no he said he's not gonna go so far so good - buddy didn't stick then the prince of morai bros up and they went back to Balak and said unto said Balaam refuses to come with us so be like sin again he said yet again princes more and more honorable than they so he ups the rank of the emissaries and sends them out again and they came to Balaam and said unto Him thus saith balak the son of zippor look nothing I pray thee hinder thee from coming unto me for I will promote the unto very great honor and I will do whatsoever thou sayeth unto me come therefore I pray thee curse me this people Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Bay like if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more now therefore I pray you tarry also here this night that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more God came to Balaam that night and said of them if the men come to call the rise up and go with them but yet the word which I shall say to thee that thou shalt do Balaam rose up in the morning and saddled his ass and went with the princes a poet well know this again scene I have a gray area first God says don't go now God says okay if you're gonna go but make sure you say what I tell you and he's on his way story is not over yet we get this strange episode forthcoming God's anger was kindled because he went boy there's some lessons here Balaam knew what God's attitude was what God would prefer him to do and what would allow him to do how often will push our luck and do what God will permit rather than what God would prefer but any case the angel Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him now he's riding upon his ass and his two servants who are with him and the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand and the ass turned aside out of the way and went into the field and Balaam smoked the ass to turn her into the way obviously the donkey could see the aim Balaam could not so Balaam of course is furious now the term angel the Lord is usually assumed by most scholars that requites to a Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ and the reason they make a distinction between the angel of the Lord that phrase and the Angels in general is because they are they they're offered and received worship which angels do not their that's absolutely forbidden to ordinary angels in Genesis 16 18 22 gen Exodus 3 Joshua five judges 613 a lot of other places you'll discover the term angel Lord seems to imply deity and that's why most scholars presume it's what we call David we're not sure what something is you give it a fancy name so we call this a theophany an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ and so be that as it may the angel of the Lord stood in the path of the vineyards a wall being on this side and a wall on that side and when the ass saw the angel of the Lord he thrust herself into the one to the wall and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall and he smote her again and the age of the Lord went further and stood in the narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right or the left when the ass saw angel Lord she fell down under Balaam and Balaam xander anger was kindled and he smote the ass with the staff three times his donkey's getting beat up right and the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said unto balaam what have I done unto thee that thou has smitten me these three times and Balaam said unto the ass because that was mocked me and I would there I would there were a sword in my hand for now I would I kill thee one of the things that disturbs you about this rather bizarre event so the Balaam doesn't seem to be surprised and now there are all kinds of conjectures one is that Balaam being a pagan priest was very much into the occult and probably we can infer some what had some experience with demonic discussions - with animals that's just that's just a guess on our part but the demonic inspiration of the prophets would be going would that would go along with having a pagan office of this kind and we we do we do see that demons have permissive involvement with animals obviously there was a demon that was involved with a snake and Garden of Eden Namie Satan himself also the demons at Ghaderi sought to enter the swine and so forth so we don't have a lot of insight here so we're really out in the fringe conjectures but what we do know unsound round is in Luke 8 and those passages about Ghaderi so you can check that out if you like but in any case Balaam Barrett is not surprised the asset avail am i not dine a sip on whom thou has ridden ever since I was dying unto this day was I ever want to do so unto thee and Balaam said nay the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam he saw the angel Lord standing in the way and a sword run in his hand and he bowed down his head and fell flat on his face Balaam realized that that donkey had saved his life that donkey had had prevented him from encountering Lord Ninja Lord said to him wherefore hast smitten 9 ask these three times behold I went out to with Stanley because thy way is perverse before me what we infer here is that God knew that Balaam was was getting for trouble and I suspect that there was insight into baylin's heart Balaam is after the money we'll come back to that before it's over and the a saw me and turned from me these three times unless she had turned from me surely now also I had slain thee and saved and saved her alive Abby I'm center of the angel Lord I have sinned for I knew not that thou sittest in the way against me now therefore if it displease thee I will get me back again angel Lord said unto balaam go with them and but only the word that I shall speak unto thee that thou shalt speak so Balaam went with the princess of Bailey and we're gonna find as we go here Balaam has a series of Oracle's and he refuses to do what Balak s to Israel on the one hand so he's obeying Lord but he found a loophole he will counsel Balaam how to get around some problems and I'll come to that when balak heard that Balaam was coming he went out to meet him in the city of Moab which is the border varnon which is in the utmost up most coast and Balak said in a bit and Bale AK said to Balaam did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee where for chemists now not unto me am I not a indeed able to promote the honor Balaam said in a bit well I am come unto thee have I now any power at all to say anything the word that God put it in my mouth that shall I speak the Balaam went with Balak and they came to carry off who's off and Balak offered oxen and sheep and sent to Balaam and the princes that were with him he's throwing a feast here as we're doing he said Balak is really laying it on and came to pass on the morrow that bale Act took Balaam and brought him up into the high places of bail that thence he might see the utmost part of the people get the picture in verse 41 we were up on a hill and they can look down and see the camp of Israel now back from numbers chapter 2 what do they see that's the layout of the camp of Israel looking from the east which is the way the looking so they what do we see unfolded before Balaam across I think that's interesting we built thought we'd developed all that in the in that first session and Balaam said unto Balak build me here seven altars and prepare me here seven oxen and seven Rams they like this bale and spoken and be like and Balaam offered on every altar the Bullock and ran and Balaam said to Balak stand by thy burnt offering and I will go a peradventure the Lord will come to meet me and whatsoever he show with me I will tell thee and he went to a high place so they did their pagan offerings but Balaam separates himself for private time with the Lord he do that he'll do that each time and God met Balaam and said unto him I have prepared seven altars and I have offered upon every altar a Bullock in Iran the Lord put a word in bales mouth and said we turn unto balak and thus thou shalt speak and he returned unto Him and lo he stood by the his berto sacrifice he and all the princes of Moab and took up his parable and said Balak the king of Moab this is the first of four Oracle's on regarding Israel you tear up this parable said Baylock the king of Moab had brought me from Haram out of the mountains of the east saying come curse me Jacob and come defy Israel how shall I curse whom God hath not cursed and how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied for from the top of the rocks I see him and from the hills I behold him and loads of people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations who can count the dust of Jacob and the number of the fourth part of Israel let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his I'm intrigued with the fourth part by the way it sounds like he's talking about one of those arms of things this is the first Oracle first of four Oracle's confirm that Israel be like the dust of the earth we're going to discover that these four Oracle's that a Balaam will discuss confirms the Abrahamic covenant whether he knew that knowingly or just the is a speculation and who can count the dust of Jacob well that's fist Balak said to Balaam what has doubt done unto me I took thee to curse my enemies and behold thou has blessed them all together so Balak I think feels a little defrauded here huh and the answer and they said must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD hath put in my mouth and Balak said him come I pray thee with me to another place from whence thou may I see them thou shalt see but the utmost part of them and thou shalt not see them all and curse me curse me them from thence Balak somehow it feels it may be tried again from another place you might get a different result and he brought him into the field of Zofia on the top of Pisgah and built seven altars and offered a Bullock and a ram on every altar and here's this piscano but an ebow thing i wanted to mention this but Mount Pisgah is a ridge of the alberene mountains west of husband and it's it's sort of English there's not a sharp peak it's really a ridge system and this is where Israel got their first view of the Dead Sea and as where Moses also saw the land of promise niebo is a town on or near that Ridge on its western and that's a numbers a couple of times and Deuteronomy a couple of times but neva was the town because of Mount Nebo this technical thing here in Scripture Nebo denotes only the town for what it's worth anyway and he said to be like stand here by the burnt offering while I meet the Lord yonder and Lord met Baylor and put a word in his mouth and said go again and to be like to say this and when he came unto Him behold he stood by his burnt offering and the princes of Moab with him and balak said him what hath the Lord spoken and he took up this parable this is the second Oracle if you will it said rise up they lack in here hearken unto me thou son of zaboor God is not a man that he should lie either a son of man that he should repent and he said shall he not do it he hath spoken and he shall shall he not make it good behold I have received commandment to bless and he hath blessed and I cannot reverse it Balin is being faithful to what God said and course Bailey is getting increasingly frustrated because he F not to be held iniquity and Jacob neither Heaphy seen perverseness in Israel the Lord his God is with him and the shout of a king is among them who there's an interesting term a king introduced here we're in numbers 23 and God brought them out of Egypt and he half as it were the strength of a unicorn and now the shot of a king by the way is a is a militaristic threat kind of turn now the unicorn is actually a translation where a dream which is we know a lot about first of all Irene has two horns so why the translators use the term unicorn causing a lot of confusion who knows he has great strength he's very fierce he's untamable as young are very playful and so forth and so we can make all kinds of conjectures as it was some kind of wild bowl that may no longer be around there's a couple of conjectures I'll spare you all those but it's not a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros or those conjectures but we do know something about it from its various references in the scripture and the so it's a it could be some kind of specialized Buffalo or water untamable ox of some kind so for what it's worth but we'll move on surely there is no enchantment against Jacob neither is there any divination against Israel according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and Israel what hath God wrought and that phrase may sound familiar to you because I'm May 24th of 1844 when Sam will be Morris sent the first Telegraph on the on a between Washington Baltimore that the Congress had appropriated thirty thousand dollars for the first experimental telegraph line Samuel B Morrison and they're not only in Morse code but the whole thing and so the first thing was sent was that what God hath wrought he dropped this phrase out here so I mentioned that just in passing behold the people shall rise up as a great lion and lift himself up himself as a young lion he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey and drink of the blood of the slain be like said unto balaam neither curse them at all nor bless them at all but Balaam answered and said to Balak told not IV saying all the Lord speaketh that I must do so now we've had the second article there our Oracle therefore in Israel and God he confirmed that God is among his people now we move on be like setting the beam come I pray they'll bring me to another place peradventure oh please God that thou mayest cursed me from thence Balak brought Balaam to the top of peor which looketh toward jessamine and Balaam said unto balak build me here seven altars and premier prepare me here seven bucks and seven Rams and Balak did as Balaam had said and offered a block and a ram on every order and so we're up there by Pisgah you can get a feeling for the geography and when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel he went not as at other times to seek for enchantments but he said his face toward the wilderness and Balaam lifted up his eyes and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes in the Spirit of God came upon him and took up his parable and said Balaam the son of Beor have said and the man whose eyes are open hath said he hath said which heard the words of God which saw the vision of the Almighty falling into a trance but having his eyes open how goodly are thy tents o Jacob and oh the Tabernacles o Israel as the valleys are they spread forth as the gardens by the riverside as the trees of line aloes which the LORD hath planted and the cedar trees beside the waters he shall pour the water out of his buckets and his seat shall be in many waters as Kings shall be higher than a gag and his kingdom shall be exalted a gag was the name of the first king of the Amalekites and so on God brought him forth out of Egypt TF as it were the strength of a unicorn he shall eat up the nations his enemies and he shall break their bones and pierced them through with his arrows he couched he laid down as a lion and as a great lion who shall stir him up blessed is he that blesseth thee and cursed is he that curseth thee that's like a quote out of Genesis 12 the Abrahamic call if you will so we have the third Oracle Balaam now Balak Sanger was Kindle against Balaam he smote his hands together and be like said to Balaam I have called thee to curse my enemies and behold thou us all together bless them these three times therefore now flee thou to thy place I thought to promote thee with great honor but lo the LORD hath kept the back from honor Balaam said unto be like spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sent us unto me saying if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord to do either good or bad in my own mind but what the Lord sayeth that will I speak and now behold I go to my people come therefore I will advertise the what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days so BAE likes gonna get a he's gotten for that he paid for it didn't like he's going to get three more most commentators say he made four articles I'm gonna suggest you three more coming I count seven and he took up this parable and said Balaam the son of Beor had said and the man whose eyes are open and said yes said which heard the words of God and knew the knowledge of the Most High which had the vision of the almighty falling into a trance but having his eyes open in this fourth portal we find three of the howard names of god we have the name L for God we have le on the knowledge of the Most High and the Almighty el shaddai eye are all three of these labels highly revered in in the in the Torah are used by Balaam here in this fourth Oracle and falling into transport having his eyes open I shall see him but not now I shall be holding but not near there shall come a star out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel and shall smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of Jesse now this phrase in verse 17 of number 24 a lot of people try to say that the star out of Jacob is a prophecy of the Christmas star I don't happen to believe that doesn't mean I'm right but I don't think this has anything to do with the Star of Bethlehem in that sense the star of Jacob and the scepter shall rise out of Israel is the typical kind of parallelism parallelism you find in Hebrew literature they're both speaking of David and by extension of course Jesus Christ no question about that but the star out of Jacob is the the the it's used here in the sense of the Star of David if not the Star of Bethlehem in the usual sense do you follow me nothing and so forth I believe the Star of Bethlehem was supernatural I don't believe it's something you can determine by age conjunctions or astronomy it was supernatural event the the Magi were experts in this area they recognized this was distinctive it was something that Daniel had taught them to look for and there's a whole background there but I don't look I don't I've been to so many planetarium shows shows where they try to conjecture that it was the conjunction of this or that and they missed the whole point and if it was naturally explainable it wouldn't have served the purpose that it was sent to but we'll move on here this I believe refers to David an immediate sense and Jesus and the ultimate sense and Edom shall be a possession in Sierre shall also be a possession for his enemies and Israel shall do valiantly and out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion and shall destroy him that remained from the city this was not pleasant of course for Balak to hear there's there was fulfillment of this about Moab and Edom in first Kings eleven David succeeds here but even in a broader sense it's yet future Isaiah and Jeremiah and the whole book of Obadiah deals with the ultimate fate of Edom that is here introduced by Balaam in numbers 24 when we keep moving here that was the fourth article but there's three more coming and he looked up on Amalek and took up his this parable here's another parallel and said Amalek was the first of the nations but his ladder M shall be that he shall perish for ever so much for the amal x Amalekites he looked on the Kenites and took up his parable and it said strong is thy dwelling place that thou puttest thy nest in iraq nevertheless the Kenites shall be wasted until asher shall carry thee away captive and the asher being of the assyrian empire indeed did carry them away captive he took up this parable said alas who shall live when god do with this the ship shall come from the coasts of chittim and chittim is regarded by most scholars are referring the the the nations that are on the Mediterranean coasts that would include Greece and Rome and the coasts of chittim and shall afflict Ashur that is the Assyrian Empire indeed Romans did and shall afflict Eber and shall and he also that is the Roman Empire shall perish forever and Balaam rose up and went and returned to his place and Balak also went his way so they split up but after these rather remarkable prophecies that have to do not just with Moab but with Edom and with the the Assyrian Empire and so forth all that is yet you know future so describing empires that are destroyed that haven't even risen to power yet so just by way of review we had the first Oracle it confirmed this will be like the dust of the earth the second one that in confirmed that God would be in their midst the third one that confirmed that Israel would inherit the land and finally that they would have a king that would dis possess Moab and Edom the four Oracle's these are the four Oracle's as you will find in most commentaries they're the four that had direct dealings with Israel but if you read the last few verses following the fourth one there's actually in my mind three more the Amalekites the Canaanites and Astron even Eber and so that makes how many 7 how interesting ok Balaam made some mistakes and he's referred to three different ways in the scripture the way of balaam is spoken of by second Peter the error of Balaam is mentioned by Jude in verse 11 and the doctrine of Balaam shows up in revelation 2 verse 14 and what are these the way of Balaam his mistake was making religion his source of wealth he was a hireling he prophesied for money big mistake big mistake the error of Balaam also was he was hired by the enemies of the people of God to curse them even always one to not to buy God and the doctor of Balaam something we haven't seen yet but it's coming that has to do a spiritual unchastity marriage with the world what Balaam is going to do he couldn't prophesy to please Balak but what he did do we explain to Balak how he can undo Israel he suggest that he take his best-looking gals camp along the fringes entice the men to have sex with him get them involved in the immorality and by their I'm getting from at him morality God would judge Israel that counsel of Balaam is what Balak takes and gets the Israel in trouble now he does Balaam does live righteously afterward but he will perish with the enemies of God at the end that occur in Joshua 13 anyway just to wrap this up the last chapter here Israel by Bowden shittim that's a town up there and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab you can't tell from the text you have to look ahead to find out why did they do this because Balaam had advised Baylock that that was the strategy and they called the people and the sacrifices under their gods the people that eat and bow down to their gods and Israel joined himself unto bale PR and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and behold these cause the children of Israel through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of our meeting ahead by the way I'm reading in numbers 31 I'm looking ahead to plug this hole so you'll follow this the counsel of Balaam behold these cause the children of Israel through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of peor and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord so back to number 25 the Lord said unto Moses take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the Sun that the fierce anger Lord may be turned away from Israel and Moses said unto the judges of Israel slay ye everyone his men that were joined unto bale pillar and behold one of the children Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianite ish woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the cognition of the children of Israel who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle congregation can you imagine the effrontery here he not only is doing this he's doing it openly we're right in front of Moses takes his his is his into his tent well Phineas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron so this is Aaron's grandson saw it and he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand he went after the man he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through the man of Israel and the woman through her belly so the plague was stayed from the children of Israel those that died in the plague were twenty-four thousand when you get to first Corinthians 10 Paul tells you that there were 23,000 that died from the plague and many people you find these kinds of things equivalent a couple see the Bible contradicts itself the number says 24 and first Corinthians says 23 what does that prove that proves yet read the text very carefully 23,000 died from the plague 1,000 were executed on the spot that's what you can infer because 24,000 died 23,000 from the plague and the others ravening participation in any way the Lord speaking to Moses saying Phineas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest have turned my wrath away from the children Israel while he was zealous for my sake among them that I consume not the children Israel my jealousy wherefore I say behold I give unto him my covenant of peace and he shall have it in the seed after him even the Covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel and so this gives him a him in his legacy in a very special place before God now the name of that Israelite that was slain even that was slain with the Midianites woman was Zimri the son of Zulu the Prince of the chief house of the semi Knights there Simeon again there was getting in trouble and the name of Midian itis woman that was slain was Crosby the daughter of Zoar he was headed over a people and a chief house and Midian why are these names here if nothing else to show that there wasn't just a rash thing they admit an inquiry they knew the details this was it was apparently a subject to some process Lord said unto Moses saying vex the Midianites and spite them initial vex you were there wilds wherefore they have beguiled you in the matter of peor and of the matter of closby the daughter of Prince of Midian their sister which was slain in the day of the plague for Beor sake we made it ok a couple of things I want to show you before we wrap up in a in Genesis 15 Abraham they list 10 tribes that are in the inque Knights the Kenites Kenna cites the Canaanites Hittites parasites roughly in the Emirates Canaanites girgashites and Jabba sites good before we get to Joshua during the days still with Moses and numbers 21 we've seen the Amalekites the amorite sand the roughly mean that is the log and the king of Bashan we're dealt with right when you get to when Moses dies and passes the baton to Joshua they go into the land and how many tribes do they knock down seven exactly now one of the problems they're trying to reconcile this is many of these overlap because these tribes intermarry and they're conquering each other so it's not as crisp as you'd like but I remember some many years ago having a briefing in the Israeli Defense Forces and the young guy that was briefing us on there on the history of Israel happened to mention the early history how they originally had ten tribes they conquered three of them before going into the land and they had seven as you as he summarized that it startled because I had never noticed that before and what reason I think that's kind of interesting is because we know that prophecy is pattern and we know that there's going to be ten Kings at the end times three are not going to go along with you get put down that's why there's seven heads and ten horns and so forth so you can I think there's a there's much to be mind here that we need to study further because I think there's some hints here about what's coming not that they're Canaanites because what we're talking about there is worldwide but I think the pattern fits anyway for the next session I want you to read numbers 26 to 31 and I want you to ask yourself some questions what can you learn from the second census numbers opened with the census and it closes with a census that's why the the Greek and the Latin versions of this book is called Aerith more the the numbers the Hebrew label is in the wilderness which makes more sense but any case these census there's a census at the beginning it says the end and what can you learn about comparing the two what is the the significance of this weird exception there's an incident that occurs where gsella Fahad has five daughters and they come to the Lord and he makes a special exception to the law on their behalf why on earth is that in the Bible what does they have to do anything and how does it relate to Jesus Christ my premise is that everything in the scripture relates to Jesus Christ and we're going to find a number of things pun intended in the scripture that do that very that exemplify this very thing so it's stand for closing word of Prayer we covered a lot of ground there's a lot of lessons here we need to understand Balaam the difference between what God would allow and what he preferred and it should be one of our goals in our life to be as sensitive as we can to what God prefers not just to what he permits but there are many many other lessons here I'll let you do review your notes and and recognize that everything in here is for our learning let's bow right

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Length: 70min 38sec (4238 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020