Spiritually battle through prayer and hearing God’s word to do His will. Follow God and renew your thinking in Christ to prevent worldliness and idols. Learn from the bad fruit of Israel’s history when they did not follow the Lord. These spiritual disciplines equip you to do God’s mission and discover your unique inheritance. Then you can exercise justice in the church and community to atone for bloodshed in the land, which will protect the institution of marriage.
Spiritually Battle
The Lord told Moses to take full vengeance on the Midianites using 1,000 men from each tribe along with Phinehas the priest who killed every male and five kings of Midian and Balaam. Moses was angry they spared the women who followed Balaam as he caused them to sin against the Lord at Peor before the plague struck God’s people. He told them to kill every boy and women who had slept with a man along with purifying themselves, captives and clothes. Moses instructed them to count and divide the booty between the soldiers who fought the battle and the rest of the community. They levied a tax for the Lord from those who went out to battle, one in 500 persons and cattle as a half-share to give to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord. They took one out of every 50 persons and cattle to give to the Levites who kept charge of the tabernacle. Moses and Eleazar took the gold articles to make atonement for themselves and brought it to the tent of meeting as a memorial for Israel before the Lord (Num. 31:1-54). All believers spiritually battle through prayer and hearing His word to do God’s will.
Follow God
Reuben and Gad with large livestock herds asked Moses if they could possess Gilead on the east side of the Jordan. Moses asked why their brothers would go to war and be discouraged from crossing the Jordan into land the Lord gave them while they sat in Gilead. He accused them of following their fathers’ example of sinning in not following the Lord fully by taking the land and wandering 40 years in the wilderness. Reuben and Gad said they would build cities for their children and be armed and ready to cross the Jordan until Canaan was possessed. Moses said they would be free from obligation and gave Gad, Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh the land and cities of Sihon, king of the Amorites, kingdom of Og and king of Bashan. They drove out the Amorites who were in the land (Num. 32:1-42). Follow God fully to enable your family and congregation embrace His kingdom purpose.
Renew Thinking
Moses recorded the journeys of Israel coming out of Egypt by armies under his and Aaron’s leadership according to their starting places. Israel started out boldly and the Lord executed judgment on the Egyptian gods. After crossing the Jordan into Canaan, they drove out all the inhabitants of the land and destroyed the carved images and cast idols, and demolished all the high places to take possession and live in the land. They inherited it by lot according to their families with the larger ones getting more inheritance and smaller less. If they did not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those remaining became barbs in their eyes and thorns in their sides to give them trouble. Then God would do to Israel what He planned to do with them (Num. 33:1-56). Renew your thinking in Christ so you reject worldliness and idols.
Do Mission
When they entered Canaan, the Lord through Moses gave specific boundaries for the land allotted to them as an inheritance. He assigned the land by lot as an inheritance to 9 ½ tribes because Reuben, Gad and half-tribe of Manasseh received theirs on the east side of the Jordan River. Eleazar the priest, Joshua and one leader from each tribe helped assign the land for an inheritance (Num. 34:1-29). Do God’s mission and discover your unique inheritance.
Exercise Justice
Moses commanded Israel to give the Levites cities and pasture lands surrounding them to live in according to specific dimensions. Six cities of refuge (three on each side of the Jordan) were assigned so someone who killed a person accidentally could flee and 42 other towns were given to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance of each tribe. The cities of refuge would be places to protect someone accused of murder before he stood trial with the murderer put to death. The accused would stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest and then could return to his own property. Anyone killing a person would be put to death on the testimony of at least two witnesses. Bloodshed polluted the land and atonement could only be made for the land by shedding the blood of the one responsible. Do not defile the land where you live for God dwelled among the Israelites (Num. 35:1-34). Exercise justice in the church and community to atone for polluting the land with bloodshed.
Protect Marriage
The Lord commanded Moses to give land by lot to Israel as an inheritance and to give the inheritance of Zelophehad to his daughters. If they married sons from other tribes, their inheritance would be withdrawn and added to the inheritance of the tribe they married into. When the Year of Jubilee came, their inheritance would be added to the tribe into which they married and property taken from the tribal inheritance of their forefathers. They could marry anyone they pleased within the tribal clan of their father. No inheritance could be transferred from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite would keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers. Zelophehad’s daughters married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh and their inheritance remained in their father’s clan and tribe (Num. 36:1-13). Protect marriage as the basic building block for a stable society through laws, mentoring and economic incentives.
Ask God to accomplish the following in your life and city:
1. All believers engage in the spiritual battle
2. Follow God fully to enable your family and congregation to embrace His kingdom purpose
3. Renew your thinking in Christ so you reject worldliness and idols
4. Do God’s mission and discover your unique inheritance
5. Exercise justice in the church and community to atone for polluting the land with bloodshed
6. Protect marriage as the basic building block for a stable society through laws, mentoring and economic incentives
