Lesson 5
Chronology of Divine Guidance – Num. 20:14-21:4
Let’s establish in our consciousness exactly where we’re headed in this
book. In order to do this we’ll take a
few moments at the beginning to review what we have done in this book and to
review some of the important factors we have discovered from this book and how
they apply to the Christian life. The
book of Deuteronomy is part of what is known as the Law. This Law consisted of several books called
the Pentateuch. One of these books,
Deuteronomy, which we are studying, is made in a very particular way. In other words, if you were to outline this
book after having studied all 34 chapters, and you were to summarize it’s
message you would find yourself forced, by the way the book is designed, to
break your message and break your outline down into many parts.
It turns out that this breakdown of the book of Deuteronomy into
sections exactly parallels ancient near eastern treaty texts, which means that
this book was written in the form of a treaty.
And it underscores a very vital fact and this is that this book
delineates the relationship between God and the nation
So this is why Deuteronomy is so important. It defines what is meant by love of God. This book is divided into several parts. Deut. 1:1-5 form the preamble; this
corresponded in ancient near eastern texts to the definition like a preamble to
our Constitution, and defined the two parties to the covenant. Deut. 1:5 to the end of chapter 4 we have
what is called the historical prologue.
Chapters 5-26 deal with what we call the Law. If so and so does something then such and
such happens. It’s written in a
casuistic form, a form that was used in the ancient near eastern areas for
expression of law. Chapters 27 to the
end of the book deal with the conclusion, various official needs that the
treaty had in order to be ratified, etc.
You want to be clear on this outline.
Let’s come back and concentrate on the first four chapters. These are the first four chapters which we
call historical prologue. This
historical prologue takes you back in time, behind this point. Here’s the point
in time when God obligates Himself by a written legal treaty with a national
entity. This national entity was
You will notice that this takes us back to Sinai; Sinai is 1440 BC. So during this period of the historical
prologue, these four chapters, you have an approximate period of time of forty
years. Now why bother with this, why go
through four entire chapters in the Old Testament just to talk about forty
year’s history? Because God is saying
something to the nation at this point.
Within this bracket of time this nation has failed, and failed and
failed and failed and failed again and God is saying look, I made a treaty with
you at Sinai, I sealed that treaty, I showed Myself on Mt. Sinai and you have
broken it and broken it and broken it.
Now legally God was free to break the covenant at this point. Legally God could have destroyed the covenant
and said I’m through with you, I’ve had it, you people have resisted Me every
time I’ve tried to lead you so therefore you’ve had it. Therefore at this point God could have opted
out of the treaty and we know this from archeology, that it was perfectly legal
precedent for doing this.
But, and here’s where you come across grace, God says in spite of the
fact that you people have fallen flat, you have violated this treaty, I am
going to reinstate the treaty. And the
story of the reinstatement is the book of Deuteronomy. God is going to reinstate the treaty on the
basis of the grace principle. You don’t
want to forget this. Many of you have
read the Scofield Bible. C.I. Scofield did not intend to say some of the things
his critics have said. His critics say,
oh you dispensationalists from Dallas Seminary always say that the people in
the Old Testament lived under the Law and we live under grace, there was no
grace in the Old Testament, etc. Please
notice, there are four chapters of grace, four chapters of God giving His
unmerited favor toward us in our behalf.
We broke these four chapters down into several parts. The first part extends from 1:6 to 1:18. This simply outlines the original
treaty. 1:19-33 was the section in which
they failed. I want to call this to your
attention again because we pick it up just after they have failed and we will
finish chapter 1. The nation had gone
into the land. Here’s Israel, here’s the
Red Sea; down here you have the northern end which we call the Gulf of
Aqaba. Mt. Sinai is down here. This nation, after spending two years
sojourning at Mt. Sinai so that they could be drilled and drilled in the Word
of God, was then called to move north, about a million of these people moved
along the west side of the Gulf of Aqaba on up to a point called Kadesh. When they got there at the boundary point,
which would be equivalent in the Christian to maturing to the point where God
can use you in a significant way, when they got to this point they flunked the
exam. They came up to this point God
said look, I promised to give you victory, I promised to take you into the
land, and all these things will be provided.
Now you’re going to have to walk in faith, in faith that I will provide.
And they looked up here and saw these Anakim; these were giants in the
land, they were literal giants as we have quoted from archeology. They looked at these people and they had
fortified cities all up and down, the Canaanites had fortified cities, they had
a feudal society, and they took one look at that and they said we can’t go
that, here we are a rural people, what kind of war machines are we going to use
to move in from the south and make a penetration against all these fortified
cities. We haven’t got any battering
rams; we don’t have any military equipment to handle this kind of a war. And they had many other excuses. But God has His equipment and you remember
the story of Jericho. That’s what He would have done to every city if they had
trusted them. But they failed to do so
and they turned back. Tonight we meet
them just after they have failed; this is part of the historical prologue so
God’s purpose in citing this to our attention is to show us that once again He
comes through in grace in spite of failure.
Turn to Deut. 1:41 and we’ll pick up the narrative where we left it last
time. God is going to do a very ironic thing at this point in history. Up until this time the nation has said look
God, I know that You have made certain promises, but I don’t think You can do
it and tonight we’re going to see a very ironic thing because this nation turns
around and they say oh, God doesn’t want us in the land any more. God turns the tables on them and God says
okay, you people want to go south, you go south and you take the longest route,
which is called the way of the Red Sea, it goes down the east side of the Gulf
of Aqaba. He says if you’d like to go
south, you go south.
Then, to show you the perverseness, this nation turns around and tries
to reenter, now against God’s Word. So
God is going to show them first, you didn’t believe Me to get you into the land
fine, you want to go on your own steam, you try it. So now it’s going to be the ironic thing;
before they saw the Anakim, they saw all the fortified cities and they said God
can’t do it. Now tonight we’re going to
see where they say well, I guess maybe we can do it, and God says no you can’t
and I’m going to let you go down in defeat to show you that you can’t do it by
yourself.
We pick up the narrative in verse 41, just after verse 40. You might say verse 40 is the basis for all
we’re going to say regarding the theology of this problem. “But as for you,”
and this is God speaking, watch this carefully, “But as for you, turn you, and
take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.” Archeology tells us that the way of the Red
Sea is down the eastern side of the Gulf of Aqaba; this is a well-known trade
route. It went down this way and it was
called “the way of the Red Sea” because it paralleled the Red Sea due to
terrain, geography, etc. This was God’s
will for them from this moment on. You
watch how believers get in trouble, and this is how this nation got in
trouble. Up until verse 40 the will of
God was for them to make a northward penetration. This was within God’s will, He had instructed
Moses to do this.
Now watch what happens. In verse
40 the will of God changes and now He says you don’t make the northward
penetration, you move down the east side of the Red Sea. They are as stubborn in obeying verse 40 as
they were in the first phase, and not only this, they’re confused at this
point. The will of God first, go north;
now the will of God has changed, go south.
So the geographical will of God is for them to turn around, make a 180
degree turn and move south.
But then verse 41 shows you what happened. “Then ye answered and said unto me, We have
sinned against the LORD; we will go up and fight,” this is frequently what a
Christian who is ignorant of the will of God does, and I want to show you this
because I know some people have doubts about the doctrine of confession and
they say this confession principle doesn’t work, I’ve confessed my sins and
this doesn’t solve any problems, it’s a waster of time, etc. Do you know why? Because immediately upon confession at this
point in time you would turn right around and violate another principle of the
Word of God and here’s what happened. In
verse 41 the nation is correct; they have violated the will of God. The will of God means to make that northward
penetration; they have violated that, but watch what happens.
Verse 40, the will of God has changed and they aren’t up to the change
so what do they do, they confess, verse 41, “we have sinned,” that’s fine, but then
they make the wrong deduction, so we’re going to go up and fight “according to
all that the LORD our God commanded us.”
God had not commanded them to go up and fight because in verse 40 He
just said turn around, I want you to do a 180 and get out of here. So you see, they’re misquoting the will of
God and you can’t build your life on the wrong Biblical principle and get away
with it. We’re going to see 38 long years of suffering when no one, including
the leadership of this nation for 38 years got through their head what God had
said in verse 40. So for 38 years these
people suffered and suffered and were miserable and in the end they blamed God
for it. We’re going to see a passage where they turn around and say God, why
did you lead us here. That’s almost
blasphemy. God didn’t lead them there;
they led themselves there by their own stupidity. God had clearly declared His will and they
violated it.
Verse 41, “We have sinned against the LORD; we will go up and fight,”
wrong deduction, and a wrong statement, “And when ye had girded on every man
his weapons of war, ye were ready to go up into the hill.” Here they’re going to go. Now watch what happens, verse 42, “And the
LORD said unto me, Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight, for I am not among
you; lest ye be smitten before your enemies.”
Look at verse 30 and you see the change in the will of God because verse
30 says “The LORD your God, who goeth before you, he shall fight for you,” that
was part one of God’s will, as long as they were to make that northward
penetration God would be with them. They
said no, we won’t do it, God said fine, if you want to play your game go ahead,
go south. And so they said no, we want
to go north. They’re still stuck in the
rut.
So in verse 42 God says don’t go up because I’m not going to be
with. So “go not up” and the word “go
not up” is important in Hebrew because in the original text it is a very strong
statement, it is not just go do it, it means never go up. You know the two ways in which the Hebrew can
express a negative. You can have a word
that looks like ’al, and this means
don’t do something, you’re about ready to do it, don’t do it. And there’s another way of expressing it, it
looks exactly the opposite, lo’, long
o, and when this is connected with a verb in the Hebrew language it means never
do it. This is the kind of negation in
verse 42, never go up. This is important
to notice although you will never get it from the English text because the
usual construction in this kind of situation is just don’t do something, you’re
about to do it, don’t. Like your child
would do something and you’d say don’t do that, but if you had laid down a
principle for his behaving and you say I never want to see you do something
like that, you would be using lo’. There’s the difference.
God is using that second Hebrew construction in verse 42, “Never go up,”
and this lays down what we call in Hebrew an absolute negation which means that
under no conditions whatever will this generation ever go into that land. This is an unconditional declaration by God
about His will, and once you have a condition where God has unconditionally
expressed His will you have a very strange thing going back to the sovereignty
of God. There are several kinds of
sovereignty. There is the overruling
will of God and this means that God is going to do something regardless of what
you do. Examples of this would be the cross
of Jesus Christ. Another example would
be the Second Advent of Christ, when He comes again. Nobody on earth is going to have anything to
do with that, that’s wholly up to God’s sovereignty. So there is an overruling will of God.
Then we have a permissive will of God.
This means that God is going to permit you to disobey Him so He can work
through that disobedience to perform His will.
Illustration: Judas Iscariot was not in the will of God but God knew
from all eternity exactly who Judas Iscariot was and He knew how to use Judas
Iscariot. So when Jesus Christ at the
Last Supper turned to Judas and said he whose hand I put this sop, he it is who
is going to betray Me. If you want the
Oriental custom on that, that was a gracious offer. Jesus Christ from omniscience knew Judas
Iscariot would betray Him. But in
offering him the sop, it was part of the oriental custom of the day that this
was a gracious invitation; you served your honored guest first and when Jesus
was at the Last Supper by serving Judas Iscariot first that was a gracious
invitation to Judas to trust in Him. But Judas rejected, Jesus knew it and
therefore He said all right, what you have to do, go ahead and do it. There’s a case where Jesus, in His
omniscience, knew exactly what was going to happen, permissive will of
God. Sovereignty did not stop Judas; overruling
will would have, but it was not in God’s overruling will in this case.
Then we have the declared will of God, this is God’s will for every
believer, every person that’s trusted in Christ. These three phases break down the sovereignty
of God so we can understand how He works in various situations. In this situation it’s going to be overruling
of God and it all begins with verse 42.
“Go not up” is an expression which means never go up under any circumstances
and this sets up the entire thing. Now
we can block out the will of God for these people. Number one, they are to go south along what
is known as the Red Sea highway. That’s
the way they’re supposed to go, south; keep that direction in mind because
we’re going to have Israelites all over the Sinai Peninsula before we’re
done. They are going to be going east,
north, and west and everywhere but south.
Keep in mind the will of God for them is to go south along the Red Sea
highway. Second, you are never to go
north. So it’s pretty clear what God
wants you to do and He’s expressed it with an absolute negation, meaning that
under no circumstances will He change His mind.
So this means that until this generation dies they have no choice.
Verse 43, notice how responsive they were to God’s Word. “So I spoke unto you; and you would not hear,
but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD, and went presumptuously up
into the hill. [44] And the Amorites, who dwell in that mountain, came out
against you, and chased you as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto
Hormah. [45] And you returned and wept before the LORD; but the LORD would not
hearken to your voice, nor give ear unto you.”
In verse 45 you have an interesting prayer principle that comes out of
this whole problem. Notice it says the
Lord would not hearken to their voice.
That’s very interesting. Why
wouldn’t God hearken to their voice?
What were they weeping about?
They were weeping about the fact that they had made this northward
penetration and got zapped. They’d gone
up here and got creamed, so now they’re picking up the pieces down here, their
wounded and their dead, and they’re weeping about it and they’re saying God,
give us victory, God give us victory, God give us victory.
And God doesn’t hear their prayers.
Why? They’re out of the will of
God. You can’t pray unless you know the
Word of God. Here’s a perfect example of
this and this is why a lot of prayer is wasted, just a lot of hot air, because
unless you know the will of God that’s declared in Scripture it’s useless to
pray because why pray for something against His Word; He’s not going to hear it
and here’s an example of it. God didn’t
listen to them at all. Of course in omniscience
He knew and heard, but God did not respond to their prayer simply because it
was prayed out of His will.
Verse 46 is the tragic result, “So you abode in Kadesh many days,
according unto the days that you abode there.”
Verse 1 of chapter 2 is a verse which describes a period 38 years later. There is a gap between 1:46 and 2:1 of 38
long years. We’re going to finish up by
going through this gap and explaining some of the principles that we can find
there. Verse 1 of chapter 2 to get the
end, we want to get the introduction and the conclusion and then we’ll fill in
the story.
2:1, “Then we turned and took our journey into the wilderness by the way
of the Red Sea,” does that sound familiar.
That’s His will, it goes back to point number one, go south by the Red
Sea, “as the LORD spoke unto me; and we compassed Mount Seir many days.” Then verse 2, “And the LORD spoke unto me,
saying.” I want you to notice something
carefully here. Until they moved south
in God’s declared will they aren’t going to get any blessing whatever and they
are going to complain and moan and groan and gripe about Moses and gripe about
Aaron, say it’s a leadership problem, a generation gap and everything else and
it’s nothing except their own carnality that’s the problem. They are out of the will of God until they
move south.
How are we going to fill in those 38 years? There’s a gap here of 38 years. We fill it in by turning to Num. 20 and here
we find out what happened during those 38 years and through this derive some very
interesting principles as far as the will of God for the believer is concerned. While these principles were revealed
centuries and centuries ago and revealed in what we call the dispensation of
Israel instead of the dispensation of the Church, the principles carry over
today and every one of these principles, if you see what’s going on here, every
one of these principles can be applied to the Christian life. Every one of them. It’s true that historically these were
originally revealed in the context of a nation but they are also true for
experience of believers down through history.
Num. 20:1, “Then came the children of Israel, even the whole
congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode
in Kadesh,” this sounds like they have left Kadesh. They have not left Kadesh; they stayed at
Kadesh all these 38 years. What happens
is that there’s a whole boundary line that runs down here and Kadesh is a large
area, and they are in Kadesh but Kadesh has two parts, called the Wilderness of
Paran that we covered in Num. 14 and now we come to the Wilderness of Zin which
is just north of the border. This is a whole area and although it says the
people are abiding in Kadesh as though they had gone somewhere and left and
come back, all during these 38 years this nation did not move; they stayed in
one spot. A very interesting typology of
Christians who operate out of the will of God, no production, no impact because
they’re staying in one spot, no motion.
In verse they have come now into the northern half, they are starting to
make this northern penetration, 38 years are up. Miriam dies, she was always a trouble-maker
in her generation, so when she died off I guess Moses said now we get rid of
her we can move north. Unfortunately for
Moses he’s going to have a problem with himself in a few verses.
Verse 2, “And there was no water for the congregation; and they gathered
themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.” Now isn’t that an interesting
observation. They come to a situation
where there’s no water. Why are they in
the situation to begin with? They’re
going to start complaining, it’s Moses fault, it’s the board’s fault, it’s the
deacon’s fault, it’s the pastor’s fault, it’s someone else’s fault. Why are they there? Because they have failed to move on the basis
of the command “go south.” See, they are
still fighting this. This is 38 years later and they’re still fighting it. Therefore they come to this no water
situation, absolutely no water so they start the complain committee, they’re
going to have a demonstration, we want more water.
Verse 3, “And the people chode with Moses, and spoke, saying, Would God
that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD!” Real positive thinking!
Verse 4, “And why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into
this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?” Isn’t that a very sweet depiction of Moses’
ministry; why Moses, have you led us
here when we know from the dynamics of the passage and the dynamics of the
spiritual life involved here that they led themselves here. Moses knew what to do; he just could never
get them to follow him. God’s will was
clear, move south, and these people said no, we’re not going to move south,
we’re going to stay right here. Moses
said all right, if you want to stay here go ahead. So then they turn around and gripe to Moses
because he didn’t go along with this.
Verses 5 and 6 is a lot of propaganda devoted to their [can’t understand
word] upon Moses. [“And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to
bring us into this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines,
or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink. [6] And Moses and
Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of
the congregation, and they fell upon their faces; and the glory of the LORD
appeared unto them. [7] And the LORD spoke unto Moss, saying, [8] Take the rod,
and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron, they brother, and speak
ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth its water, and thou
shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the
congregation and their beasts drink.”
Now verse 7, God says something to Moses, very significant. He’s going to say to Moses look, these people
need another demonstration of My grace so Moses, I want you to take a stick and
hit a rock with it. That sounds kind of
stupid to 20th century people, why take a stick and hit a rock? Because all of these works that you find in
the Old Testament illustrate a principle, typology, and the reason the Old
Testament records these is that they picture a truth that is going to be
revealed in the New Testament. What is
the rock? The rock is Jesus Christ, and
who strikes Him? Satan is going to
strike Him on the cross and out of that cross we get salvation. It’s going to be an interesting
typology. In phase one of God’s plan of
salvation this occurs once, in an instant of time when you accept Jesus Christ,
immediately you are put into the plan of God.
Watch carefully, this is a typology, and a typology can never be
violated without severe repercussions.
Moses is to take this stick and hit the rock and out of that rock God is
going to bring water. Why? Because He was teaching a principle, He was
teaching that His Son is going to die on the cross and His Son is going to die
once and out of that “once for all work” on the cross salvation comes. That’s the typology He’s given Moses. Moses takes the rod, verse 9, [“And Moses
took the rod from before the LORD, as He commanded him.”] And he calls Aaron and they get
together.
Now watch what happens. This man
is a pressured leader, he’s a man who has taken guff for 38 years and he has
gone on and on and on with it for 38 years and finally Moses breaks down and in
verse 10, “And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the
rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out
of this rock? [11] And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock
twice; and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their
beasts also.”
What did he do? He broke a
typology; that typology was designed to teach in the Old Testament way that
Christ would die on the cross once for our salvation. And Moses hit it twice; that sounds trivial,
what kind of a sin is that, hitting a rock twice when God tells you to hit it
once? Because Moses was the spiritual
leader of the nation and the spiritual leader of the nation has to teach, and
when his example falls apart the people get the wrong message and when the
people get the wrong message they can no longer respond to the Word of God,
therefore what happens” Verse 12, the
Lord lowers the boom on Moses, “And the LORD spoke unto Moses and Aaron, [and
said] Because ye believed me not to sanctify Me,” to set apart Me, sanctify
just simply means to set me apart to present teaching clearly.
For example, if you’re teaching in Sunday school you sanctify God any
time you teach clearly; you have to teach clearly and in order to teach clearly
that you have to study. It means that
you can’t wait until Saturday evening 10:00 p.m. to think about what you’re
going to teach Sunday morning. It means
that you have to think about it all week and teach clearly. So Moses was supposed to sanctify the Lord in
the eyes of Israel and he didn’t. God
said, “therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I’ve
given them.” So there goes Moses; Miriam
is gone, the first generation has died off and now Moses goes. Now his discipline is on him. At this point Moses is out of fellowship;
Moses is in trouble now.
Here, by the way, it shows you that the great leaders of the Old
Testament were no plaster saints; they were men like you are, they were women
like you are and they made mistakes, and they fell flat on their face. And believers who had a grace attitude didn’t
go around picking at them and knocking them and gossiping behind their back. Mind your business as a believer and things
will go great. But any congregation that
gets this gossip and maligning over the telephone because so and so did
something… this is what cuts the congregation up. I have been in many churches where it goes on
and it destroys the congregation. This same kind of thing went on and I want
you to see that in the Old Testament these are real figures, they fall and they
make mistakes.
Moses’ wife went off and left him.
His wife got mad because he was in the ministry and he made a few
mistakes too and she didn’t get along with him so she said fine Moses, you go
your way, I’ll go mine. And then Moses remarried, he married a colored woman
from Ethiopia, not a colored person of the Negroid race but a colored person, a
very dark Ethiopian. Miriam got all
upset about that and started a maligning campaign against that. By the way, if you read this passage, it’s
interesting. Do you know what God
does? He takes every one of those
persons that went on the Alexander Graham Bell of their day and He just wipes
them out. God can’t stand this gossip
and this maligning, where people knock someone else because they made a
mistake. You just graciously accept
it.
So in the Old Testament these people made mistakes and here Moses makes
his big blooper and he’s going to get disciplined for it. Watch what happens. He is out of fellowship, in trouble, now look
what happens to Moses’ judgment. Verse
14, “And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom,” and remember
what we read. Here is the picture
geographically so you can understand what’s going on. Here’s the south end of the Dead Sea; here’s
the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba.
Here’s the land as it was given to them and here’s Kadesh. That’s where they are. Across here is a land called Edom. Edom is to the east and there’s a great super
highway right up here and it would be so easy to get these people on them and
march them right up this highway, no terrain difficulties, these people could
have all the supplies they needed. It
was easy so Moses said look, I’ve got to get up here, I can’t go through here,
God said not to go north, okay, let’s go east.
That’s only half the will of God.
God not only said don’t go north, He said I want you to go south by the
Red Sea road which is this highway; you’re taking the wrong route.
Look what happens, verse 14 is a proposal that emirates from a believer
in trouble, a believer who is under pressure and can’t think scripturally. Therefore Moses makes an error and this whole
passage is an error, it’s wrong. It’s
inspired Scripture but it’s teaching you something that is wrong; Moses is out
of the will of God at this time and he says I want to go east. God’s command still has not been followed,
“go south.”
So look what happens, and this is analogous to believers who are out of
fellowship trying to solve their problems.
It would be analogous, for example, for a believer who has been called
by God to go into the ministry and he goes into engineering and he can’t make a
go of it in engineering and he says oh God, God why did you let this happen to
me, and he prays God, why don’t you bless my engineering, get me a job, why all
the suffering. This is analogous right
here, because that’s not God’s will, God doesn’t want him to be an engineer, he
wants’ him in the ministry. So it is
with Moses. Watch this, this is a human
proposal, it stems from self-centered viewpoint. God centered viewpoint, go south;
self-centered viewpoint says go east. So
now he gives his eastern proposal, watch what happens. [v. 14, “And Moses sent
messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother,
Israel, you know all the travail that
has befallen us, [15] how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt
in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers; [16] And when
we cried unto the LORD, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought
us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost
of thy border.”]
He’s going to be very gracious, verse 17, “Let us pass, I pray thee,
through thy country. We will not pass
through the fields, or through the vineyards,[neither will we drink of the
water off the wells; we will go by the king’s highway, we will not turn to the
right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders.’” we’re not going
to trample anything down, we won’t harm you, we’ll take every precaution that
we can humanly take to protect your rights.
Verse 18, And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come
out against thee with the sword. [19]
And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the highway,” they’re
still fighting this thing, we want to go by the highway, let us through. Edom says no, I’m not going to let you
through. We want go by the highway.
No. So Edom finally has to call
to arms, verse 20, and they come out there with a few brigades and line up a
few battalions across the highway and block it.
You see what happens in verse 22, “And the children of Israel, even the
whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto Mount Hor,” which is
located down here. Now they are
beginning to get back in the will of God; now they’re beginning to move
south.
Look what happens, the moment they begin to move south, verse 23, “And
the LORD spoke unto Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of
Edom, saying,” now God begins to renew His fellowship with the nation. Verse 24, “Aaron shall be gathered unto his
people; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given…,” He announces
Aaron’s death, etc. Aaron dies, that’s
the last part of chapter 20. And if you
read chapter 21 down through verse 4 you find them restored in the will of God,
“And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to compass the
land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the
way.” Here they are going south along
the road God told them to go. Next time
we’re going to see how they make a circuit, all the way around, and they will
be able to move in very successfully and invade two of the greatest nations
known in the ancient world, the so-called King of Bashan, Og, who was a man by
all historical records was a man approximately nine and a half feet tall; he
was a man probably taller than Goliath.
He was a member of the raced called the Rephaim that drove over to the
east side of Jordan. These people lived
over there and gradually died off and they built a strong empire. It was dying in Moses’ day but it was still
strong. Moses is going to lead these
people up here and they are going to give these people total annihilation. They are going to walk into this area and
destroy both Og and many of his associates and they are going to secure a beachhead
on the eastern side of the Jordan. This
is going to be the firstfruits of their conquest.
The principles are these: first in the chronology of divine guidance for
the believer, you must know the will of God which means knowing His Word. The will of God is not today revealed through
dreams and visions. Don’t be snowed by
somebody that looks in a Christian ball and can predict a few things. We’re going to deal with that, necromancy,
with the so-called gift of prophecy.
God’s divine prophecy can always be watched in history. It always has one characteristic. Bona
fide divine prophecy always is perfectly true. We have the close of the canon in
approximately 90-100 AD and God has not revealed Himself since. God has led people and God has helped people
understand His will; we’re not saying that, God has answered prayer since this
time. But in a special sense of
revelation God has closed the canon of Scripture. What you hold in your hand
will not be opened again until the Second Advent of Christ. That’s over and done with; the book of
Revelation is the last means of God revealing Himself.
So as far as the first step in divine guidance is concerned a believer
has to go back to the Word. I say this
because I talk to a lot of college students and it’s very disturbing to find a
trend among Christian college students and that is this business of going off in
some mystical experience. God gave
people brains and He intends you to use your brains. He intends me to use my brains and I’m not
doing my job as pastor unless I do, unless I sit and study six or seven hours a
day I am not using my brain the way God wanted me to. There is no part time Christian; you may have
a business, you may be a housewife, the loneliest business in the world, or
some other ministry but you somehow have a position in life. Christians are scattered all through society,
there are no second class saints as far as the Scripture is concerned. It’s true, some people have the gift of
pastor-teacher and are supported by the congregation; that’s so they can spend
their time studying to feed the sheep.
But who’s out on the front lines?
Businessmen, farmers, housewives, have their testimony and their impact;
they reach people a pastor never could reach.
If you are going to operate in the world you are going to have to know
something of the will of God for you. This
does not mean just what we call the universal will of God, the so-called
morals, this is right, this is wrong, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the specific will of God
for you, God’s plan for your life. You
have two aspects of the will of God; you have the universal aspect and the
specific aspect. The universal means for
example mental attitudes of maligning, gossip, etc. These are sins and they’re sins for everyone. On the other hand there are sins for you that
may not be true for someone else. For
example I can commit a sin in some area and you can’t and you can commit
certain sins that I can’t. Why? Because God has called you to do a job and if
you fall down on it, that’s a sin. It
may be God’s will for you to teach Sunday school and it may not be, it depends
on your spiritual gift, your degree of development of that gift. There may be another believer whose gift is
not teaching. The specific will of God
differs. This is why it’s so important
to see that you have a specific will of God for your life.
This is what knocked out Israel for 38 years. There’s no immorality here; you can’t find
one moral sin in this whole discussion.
Not sin of immorality was committed; morality has nothing to do with
it. It is God’s specific will for them
to move south and on the surface you would say what be immoral about
north? Because it was out of God’s
will.
The second thing about divine guidance is not only do you know the Word
of God but you have to relate it to circumstances. You don’t just lay it in a vacuum. You have to take the Word of God and this is
a difficult thing, to take these principles which we’re teaching and to apply
them in various areas of life. You have
to unite the Word of God on the inside with experiences on the outside and this
is hard. This comes by making
errors. Many times you’ll make a wrong
decision. Don’t let those decisions
discourage you, you keep right on. I’ve
made a lot of wrong decisions but I don’t let it get me down, I just keep
moving because as you make wrong decisions you learn, and finally you mature to
the point where you can make some right ones.
That’s the way we learn.
Finally, three, the whole plan of divine guidance is structured on
faith. You’re going to have to move and many times you will have no sensory
evidence that what you’re doing is within the will of God. You just assume on the basis of the Word that
this is where He wants you to go and suddenly you move in that direction and
you discover that is where He wants you by confirmatory evidence.
So divine guidance is one of the great principles of Scripture and we
can outline it in three easy steps. They
look easy in theory, they are very difficult to apply. We want to emphasize that you have to know
the will of God. We have seen a nation
which for one verse of Scripture, “go south” was miserable for 38 years. Think of the suffering that went on,
suffering and suffering and suffering.
Why? Because they were out of the
will of God. This is said with al due
respects but one of the reasons we suffer as believers is because of our own
stupidity. There are other reasons, such
as Job’s case, the angelic conflict; there are also many other reasons and one
of these reasons is that a believer is out of the will of God. This nation is a case in point. If you want to think of a concrete example,
think of this nation that went through 38 long years of suffering because they
did not heed the command of God.