40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 151 (Numbers 28:1-30:16)

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

Chad and Daniel discuss the feast days and calendar of Israel. Why does God give people days to observe? What does it mean to participate in holy days then and now? Moses instructs the people on making oaths and being a people who do what they say. How does this fit with what Jesus says about making oaths? Does God want us to trap Him with His own words? Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Support The Work

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is part of that 1517 podcast network. That means you can go over to 1517.org. Go over to the podcast page, check out all the other podcasts that we have over there, which is a lot of them. Maybe you're interested in books that other people don't want you to be interested in. You probably are, because that's how the law works. A bunch of people telling you don't read these books.

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because there's a donate button right there on the website and some people hit that button and they sign up give a little bit every month make everything free for everyone else and if you are able to do that you should do it and if you do that already thank you very much because you do in fact make it possible for us to offer all those resources speaking of all those resources as well we just relaunched the youtube channel now the youtube channel was a little dormant we were kind of getting our butt kicked on the youtube platform we weren't doing much there i think the last video we had uploaded was like a year and a half ago someone had to step up to the plate get it going so uh so that's what we did and so right now uh every video from every event that we've ever done

starting all the way back with christ told fast conference in orlando every city event both here still stands all the content from all of those events are on the 1517 youtube channel so the other thing is we had a chrysal fast youtube channel and a 1517 youtube channel that is sort of redundant because we don't know where to put what and so we're condensing it all into one so if you are someone who does get on youtube every once in a while go over to 1517 youtube hit subscribe there's a ton of content there which we will be now adding to regularly and we got some ideas for special just special youtube content that will only be there so you can subscribe and look for that stuff chad how are things going man i just was like overwhelmed by all the material

that's out there i'm just sitting here trying to wrap my mind around everything that uh that's available between articles podcast videos someone could take like a month vacation just read and listen every day it's true still not cover all the material that's there it's true when i said that somebody had to step up to the plate to do the youtube channel that that was me you are the someone i was and uh initially when i said i would do it like oh yeah i'll revamp this channel don't worry i got this and then i started having to pull all the videos from all the different places i realized this is going to take me weeks uh what you did what did i volunteer myself for yes uh so it took a while man it took a long time it was a it was about two weeks of

doing it uh sort of constantly in the background of everything else i was doing i had videos downloading or uploading on my so i have a desktop and it's just downloading and uploading for like two weeks while i did other stuff on my laptop so uh but it's all up there but it's it's a lot of videos man you can listen to a lot of i mean it's it's you know three years now of conferences and events and all the stuff that we've done so uh that's fantastic and it's nice because we do get emails like hey where's the you know where's the videos from this or that and you know you can direct them to they live on the website so you can go to different pages but this is the way you can just be like hey just subscribe to the youtube channel and all the videos are there so

it's all there cool yeah and uh where are we at in numbers man we are in chapter 28 we're gonna very uh very rapidly cover two chapters actually right away chapter 28 and 29 are are basically one long chapter divided into two because it all is concerning the the same thing so we'll get to that uh right away uh just as by way of recap where we left off we uh we passed the baton from Moses to Joshua, even though Moses is still alive, Joshua is going to be his successor. So we talked about that in the last few minutes of the last podcast. And now we have kind of a hard transition here from that particular subject to a discussion of the year-long celebrations, Sabbaths, and other festivals that the Israelites enjoy and participate in. So that's what chapter

28 and 29 is all about. I mean, there's really no other subject in there. And it's material that we have gone over both in Exodus and Leviticus, sometimes as a unit, sometimes in individual discussions about these various festivals. So we're not going to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about these, since if you're a regular podcast listener, you have already delved into this rich theology with us. So just to sum up what we're looking at in 28 and 29, it starts with what's called the daily offering, which we covered back in Exodus. And this is the, as the name implies, these are the offerings that are to be brought every single day to the tabernacle. And then later the temple, this was a morning and an evening sacrifice that was offered.

And it spells out there exactly what the sacrifice was to consist of. Then it goes from there to the weekly or the Sabbath offering. That's verses 9 and 10. And then just by way of progression, we started with daily and now weekly. And then there's a monthly offering that is also spelled out. After the daily, weekly, and monthly offerings, Then it transitions into the various festivals that the Israelites celebrated, beginning with Passover, which is covered in one verse, verse 16. And as you remember, again, back from Exodus, Passover and Unleavened Bread, even though they were technically two different festivals, were really conceived as one festival united.

And that's, in fact, the way it's kind of described in Exodus as well. the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread. So Passover technically is one day, and Unleavened Bread lasts for a week. So these two are joined together. Passover is in the spring, which is the time of year, of course, when the Israelites came out of Egypt. And then it goes from there to what's called the first fruits, which we also know as Pentecost.

and uh from there we're at the end of the chapter into chapter 28 so chapter 28 covers daily weekly and monthly offerings passover and unleavened bread and the festival of first fruits also known as as pentecost which is 50 days after after passover chapter 29 just basically continues the discussion, except now it jumps ahead from kind of late spring, early summer to the fall. And that feast is the feast known as Trumpets, which is the first day of the seventh month, which was, Israel had at least two different calendrical ways of figuring time, two different calendars, if you will. One began in the spring, one began in the fall. So this is the beginning of the fall calendar. And this is the Festival of Trumpets, and it spells out the offerings there.

Then it moves from there to the 10th day of the seventh month, which is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. And it covers the material that we talked about back in Leviticus in connection with the Day of Atonement. And then finally, it wraps up with the final festival of the Israelite year, and that is the Festival of Tabernacles, when annually the Israelites would remember their time of staying in tabernacles or tents or temporary shelters as they were working their way through the wilderness to the promised land. So this is kind of a bird's eye view of the whole year of the Israelites. Now you might ask, what's the purpose of this? I mean, it's why do we have, we know why we have our regular calendar, January 1st to December 31st. That's the way that we

that's a way that we kind of configure our our personal and our family and our social our business and our national lives that's it's that the calendar kind of guides us from January to December every year well in a way that's the same thing that this liturgical or worship calendar was to do for the Israelites it was to this was the way that they annually remember the significant events of the Lord's dealings with them, what they had experienced, that from which they had been rescued, and even daily remembering by means of the sacrifices, the atonement that the Lord constantly provides for them. So one of the beauties of this calendar is that every single year, you don't forget anything. Every single year, the major events of Israel's life were

or remembered. But it wasn't just a mental exercise. This was actually, this was a physical, tangible activity as well. The bringing of sacrifices, the coming to the tabernacle, the festival meals in which they participated, the word of God that they heard read, the prayers that were offered, all of this, all of this physical and verbal activity was a way that the Israelites did not just remember what God had done for them, but participated in the present in God's past deeds of salvation for them. This is one of the foundational truths that you get from the Old Testament about worship that still applies today. When the people of God gathered to worship, they don't simply remember something that happened a

long time ago. By means of the Word of God and by means of the physical ways that He comes to us, we actually participate now in that event that took place in the past, because what God is always doing is He is transferring past deeds of salvation into the present, and then transferring us from the present into those past deeds of deliverances, so that there's what you might call an an a temporality to it that is not temporal it's above temporality it's above time so that god is able to bring the past and the present together in order to bring us the blessings of the past now but also to work in such a way that we are as it were standing with israel coming out of egypt standing with israel as they pass through the red sea standing with israel as they

were in the wilderness dwelling in their in their tabernacles all of this was god's way of bringing together the past and the present so that his people of every generation were able to to to relive to re-participate in every single act of salvation which he had accomplished for them and he continues to do that for us today when we gather in worship we're not just remembering that, oh yeah, 2,000 years ago, Jesus died and rose again. God is bringing those past acts of salvation in his Messiah to us now, so that what Christ did for us is delivered to us today. But we're also, by means of the work of the Spirit, we are brought back then as well, because we are crucified with Christ. We are raised with Christ. We participate in that

historical reality while we're standing in in the present so that that this is this the way it was for the israelites is still the same way that it is for us by means of the the daily the monthly the the yearly participation in all of these festivals and all of these in all of these acts of worship god continues to pour into us in an on an ongoing basis what he did once for all in the pass for us. That's chapter 28 and 29. Is that a record for us? It might be. It might be a record for us. But I know we've gone over this over and over again, and in some ways it might feel redundant, but in some ways the Bible is redundant in the sense that it's ultimately sort of about just a couple of things said in a whole bunch of different ways. And so the idea that God has

these, you know, puts these pins down and says this thing and this thing and this thing. Observe this or remember this or participate in this. In the Old Testament, leading up to the coming of Christ, coming up to the time where God will come tabernacle with us in what feels like the wilderness. Now in church services, as you said, you have this not just remembering, but this happening over and over and over again, that God comes and unites with us and communes with us every week. This is what we have going on. It's not just a time where we get together and think deep thoughts about what happened in the past. We come together and receive from God in that very time and space. And so it is redundant, and it's a good thing because,

you know, we need that redundant forgiveness because we're pretty redundant sinners. Yeah, we need the gift over and over because we keep falling ill, and so we need the medicine over and over. We keep falling flat in our face, so we need the Lord to pick us up so He never stops giving the gifts. And He never stops bringing us together as a body, not just the body on earth, but also, I mean, when we gather for worship, we're entering into a worship that's ongoing.

Even though we don't see the angels and archangels and all the believers who are already with Christ, We are we are there present with them because if we're worshiping Christ, then we're worshiping him in the midst of all those who worship Christ, those who have already gone before us and are with Christ. Now we are we are the visible body that gathers around also the invisible body that's already with Christ in heaven. So, as I like to say, everybody shows up late for church when we go to church. We might be on time. We might get there at eight or ten thirty or whatever time the worship service starts. But actually, we're late because worship has already been been going on in heaven long before we rolled out of bed that morning. So we we enter into the presence of the Lord in the midst of this vast assembly of this cloud of witnesses that Hebrews 11 talks about and that we are we're surrounded by them, even as we're surrounded by our brothers and sisters who are just right beside us.

So and it was like that for the Israelites, too. I mean, they were participating in the heavenly worship. That's what Isaiah saw, for instance, in Isaiah chapter 6 at the temple. He saw what was already there. He saw the Lord sitting on his throne, high and exalted, and the cherubim flying around him. All of this was at the temple. He saw it even though it was invisible to everyone else that was around him. He saw the reality.

And it's like that with us in church. I mean, if we gather with the people of God around the gifts of God, if our eyes were open like Isaiah's, then we would see Christ present there with all his angels and archangels and the believers who have gone before us. So it's a – the worship that was for the Israelites, worship that is for us is a worship that is cosmic in nature and that it encompasses not just those 50 or 150 or 10,000 people that gather around us, but innumerable companies of saints and angels and all the heavenly hosts. Yeah, calendars, the way that calendars work is not just as a reminder, but it is something that you participate in. It'd be weird if, you know, if every Thanksgiving, you know, somebody said, what's Thanksgiving about? And you're like, well, Thanksgiving's a day where I sit in my house by myself and think about how a long time ago some pilgrims were really thankful. That would be weird. No, that's not what you do

You get together with family and friends And you express your gratitude For the good things that you have You are reminded to participate In thankfulness Even Christmas The reason we give gifts to each other Yes, of course it's a reminder

That we've been given the ultimate gift of Christ But we participate by Giving of ourselves to other people This is the thought process Any way behind Celebrating Christmas and saying, hey, I wanted to give you this gift. It's a way of participating in the day set aside to commemorate the ultimate gift given to us. So every Sunday is no different. And

the calendar for the Jews was no different. They didn't just have days set aside to contemplate things. There were things that they did. They participated in. So it wasn't just, yes, you have the passover where of course you remember but there's actually a participation that goes in so that those who were not there feel a part of what what happened and what is happening yeah yeah that's a in my mind that's a true uh and often unacknowledged beauty of worship is that uh we are we're not just gathering to remember but we're gathering to participate and that christ draws us into the past and the past into the present and so there's always always more that's happening than meets the eye when we gather around the lord and his gifts it's like that for the israelites

as well as for for us today and that's uh chapters 28 29 all right we're half a podcast two chapters in we're on a roll so let's see what we can let's see what we're finding next chapter 30 Numbers chapter 30. So this is a relatively short chapter. There's only 16 verses in this chapter, and it all is concerned with one subject, and that is vows or oaths that people take. So it begins with kind of a general statement. This is Moses speaking to the heads of the tribes of the sons of Israel. I'm not exactly sure why he's speaking to the heads of the tribes, But that is kind of an unusual crowd for Moses to address. Typically, he speaks to all of Israel or maybe to the priest in some situations.

But here he's speaking to the tribal heads. And what he commands them is basically, hey, if you make a vow, specifically if a man makes a vow, I'll explain more why I said specifically in this case. So if a man makes a vow and he takes this oath to, you know, to bind himself, to do something, whatever that might be, usually there's going to be a sacrifice involved in the taking of an oath or a vow. Then here's the general rule. In the verse two, it says, he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. so whatever he says even if he said it you know kind of a rashly or not really thinking through the full implications of of what he said or um you know he was maybe an emergency situation he

said oh god if you'll get me out of this i'll offer five oxen as a sacrifice or or i'll take a nazirite nazirite vow or whatever it might have been uh whatever he said he is bound to do that so whatever that's the that's the that's the rule he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth and and i think the reason that language is used is it parallels it parallels the same the same way that god's words are are are expressed so there's a lot of language in the old testament about everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the lord and the the impact of that is that whatever proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord is true and unalterable. So what he says is what is going to happen because he speaks truth.

And so in a parallel fashion, whatever a man says, whatever vow he makes, then that is what he must stick with. He must remain truthful to what he's promised. He can't, in other words, he can't, you know, maybe he's in a dangerous situation. He says, oh, Lord, if you get me, you know, if you get me away from this, If you protect me and bring me home safe and sound, get me away from my enemies or whatever it might be, I'll offer such and such a sacrifice to you. Well, and then, you know, he gets out of that situation. He makes it through okay.

And then, you know, a couple days later, he begins to regret making the vow and thinking, oh, well, this is going to cost me. You know, if I have to offer two oxen as a free will offering, wow, that's going to really make a big dent in my family's budget this year. Maybe I'll just offer a goat instead. well no that's not the way it works you can't like rethink your vow a couple of days later if that's what you vowed if that's the oath that you've made well then that's what you that's what you have to do otherwise you've lied to god not only have you lied to god but you're basically saying i'm not really thankful i know i was in a bad situation and you delivered me but i'm not really thankful for that because i'm not going to stick with with what i said and so instead i'm

going to offer a goat instead of what i actually promised to give to you yeah martin luther that thing up man you gotta say if you get me out of this this lightning storm i'll become a monk man you gotta do it i was thinking of that scenario this morning when i was reading through this this is just like luther yeah he's caught in the storm and what he praised saint anne is that is that yeah yeah so god if you if you don't know if the listeners don't know that story so yeah uh martin was studying to be he was studying law and which is what his dad wanted him to do and he was caught in this terrible thunderstorm scared to death and so he makes this vow and prays to saint anne and says hey if you'll get me out of this i'll become a monk well of course he

made it out of the storm lightning didn't strike him down and he couldn't go back and say ah you know what i really like law better than theology i'm not i'm not gonna do that so he was he was true to numbers chapter 30 right he made the oath and so he became a monk much to the chagrin of his of his of his father and much to much of the the benefit of everyone else so yeah you gotta luther this up right yeah whatever you say that's what you gotta do yeah and this isn't to say that you know if you're in a situation and then you make a promise to god then god will respond to your promise and get you out of the situation and now he's like hey where's my stuff uh that's not what it's about you probably shouldn't even make agreements like that with like all right god i'll

tell you what i'll do that's probably it's not it's not saying that this is the way that you get things done but it is saying that you should be a man of your word and so if you do say that even if it's ill-advised which i would say it probably is ill-advised but once you say it you should do it yeah i've made all kind of bargains with god you know yeah if that he didn't ask you to make i'll spare you the details but yeah i was in a really bad situation and and doing some things i should have done and i basically this was this is so embarrassing to say but i looking back on i was like you know god i'll stop this if you'll if you'll save me in this other area of my life which is just ludicrous you know like like uh as if you know i i needed to make some kind

of bargain you know well there's no bargain stop doing the wrong thing that you're doing period god's not going to honor you but oh i'm so proud of you for stopping sinning i'm going to give you a b and c no that's not the way it works so yeah bargaining with god is is uh not a good idea but apparently neither is like promising god you'll do something and then not doing it yeah right both of those are not good options for for any of us so anyway that's uh back to numbers 30 that's that's the way it starts out and then it goes from there to kind of the uh to the to the societal structure of the day and and by that i mean that it it spells out exactly what what is to happen if a daughter does the same thing about a son but if a daughter makes a vow this is when she's still

under the authority of her father still at home so not married if she makes a vow and her father hears her making a vow, it's basically up to him to decide whether to let that vow stand or basically to annul it. So you can kind of think of it this way. Whatever vow comes out of the mouth of a daughter, if it enters into the ear of the father, then he gets to decide whether to let that vow, as it were, pass through his mouth into the Lord's ears or not. So if, say, He hears his daughter make some kind of some kind of vow, which he doesn't think that she should make or that's just foolish or he disagrees with whatever it is. If she is under his roof, still unmarried as his daughter, then he has the authority as her father to basically say no. And and it dies.

The vow dies at that point. It's not binding upon her. But if he doesn't say anything, then she is bound by that by the vow that she that she made. so that's that's the first specific case that's spelled out here the second is that if a woman is a widow or if she's divorced then whatever vow she makes then whatever proceeds out of her mouth then she must be faithful to fulfill that vow so that's the second scenario so first is father daughter second is i guess what we today would call an independent woman that is a woman who is widowed or divorced and not, so not, not married. In other words, the third scenario is a

woman who's married. And that scenario is, is just almost exactly like that of the, that of the daughter. If a husband hears his wife make a vow and, and doesn't think it's a good idea, doesn't think it's best for her, uh, thinks it's foolish, doesn't agree with it, whatever that might be, then he has the authority to, to stop that vow. But again, just like with the daughter, if he doesn't, he hears his wife make a vow, he doesn't say anything, then that vow stands. And if he hears her and doesn't say anything, and really doesn't agree with it, and then later tries to kind of go back on it, then he himself bears the guilt for not saying anything to begin with. So this is a reflection of Israelite society. This is the way it was established, where the

father is the one who has the authority over his daughter. The husband has the authority over his wife in terms of the vows. And a woman who's widowed or a woman who's divorced, then she has the independence to make or to not make a vow according to the freedom that she's been given. So that's Numbers chapter 30. You know, reading through that, it's a good reminder to me, just as a general rule, and this is reflected all over Proverbs, not to mention the rest of the Bible, but certainly all over Proverbs. Basically, when you're talking to God, be careful what you say. And don't be making rash promises. Jesus talks about this in the Sermon on the Mount, of course, when he's talking about vows and oaths. In fact, he encourages, let your yes be yes and

your no be no. Don't be swearing by heaven or swearing by the throne of God or swearing by the hairs on your head or anything else. Just let your yes be yes and let your no be no. So but when we start making promises to God and telling him all these things we're going to do, then we we'd better be careful because our our words, our words are taken seriously and our words are are those which which the Lord hears. And so when we're dealing with holy matters, especially in this case with vows and oaths, let our words be few and let them be precise and let them be thought through instead of simply just blurted out rashly. Yeah, I mean Jesus' point in the Sermon on the Mount, which is to discourage you from really making oaths, period. So again, this is not the encouragement of make a bunch of promises, make a – swear a bunch of oaths or anything like that. it's just, it's, it's an encouragement to let your words stand and to be trustworthy. The reason for this now, of course, like we're not the reason that we are prone to have, you know, maybe you've

said, you've probably said these words. You probably have. You've probably said like, I swear to God, like when somebody asks you something and then you tell them, then they're like, no. And you're like, swear to God, that's what I like. That's what, that's what happened or that's what I'm going to do or whatever it is. The reason you have to do that is because you're a liar. And the reason I have to do it is because I'm a liar. The reason that anyone has to simply say more than yes or no, they have to add to it, is because we're not trustworthy. So we add something, we supplement it with something greater than us.

The reason, theologically, that Jesus doesn't want us to have to do that is because God wants us to be able to trust a word, because this is the way as a reflection of God. So when God says yes or no, that's how it is. He doesn't have to add anything to it. If he says this is what I'm going to do, well, that's what he does. And he says this is what I'm not going to do, and he doesn't do it. Our oath-taking and our swearing by things just shows how unlike God we are

and how untrustworthy we are because we have a very difficult time just letting our yes be yes and our no be no. Yeah, I think that psalm, it says, Let God be true and every man a liar. Yeah. Yeah, it's very true. And that's why we're always trying to swear by something higher than us. And that's why God, when he, I think Hebrews talks about this,

when he swears, because he has no one higher than himself to swear by, he swears by himself. So that's God's basic way of saying that what he says, the he is the highest authority and therefore whatever he says is going to be true cannot cannot be reneged on cannot be he cannot lie he cannot take take away that which he has that which he has promised and so whatever he says we can trust to be true yeah i mean so you think like there's this very noble thing of of saying that i give you my word right this is an old school concept but god that's exactly what he does he's like the ultimate guy that says i give you my

word so like god giving you his words god's you know essentially promising to himself and we don't have very many people that we trust you know maybe you go to the bank and say uh hey i'd like to take out a thousand dollar loan i'll pay it back i give you my word they're gonna want you to have some some they want you to sign something they're gonna want you to have some you know your word is not gonna quite be enough it's not gonna be enough for god it's enough which is which is why at the same time, you can hold God to his word, right? And the psalmist does this all the time. He's basically calling upon God to be God. You promised God to be with us. You promised to give us victory over our enemies. You promised to always be with us. You promised this and that and many other

things. And so what the psalmist often does, especially when they are crying out to God in the midst of trouble or persecution or pain or whatever it might be, they're basically saying, hey god you have promised this you have you have sworn by yourself that these things are true therefore we are calling upon you to to be good to that word so it's kind of like the uh uh the syrophoenician woman right who keeps pursuing jesus even though he ignores her and seemingly insults her and says you know is it right to take the children's bread and throw it through the dogs That's what her response is, is taking the words of Jesus and presenting those words back to him and saying, to your word be true, because she says, you're right. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.

This is her saying, all right, you said it, Jesus. I'm a dog, and therefore give me the crumbs. Be true to your word. And that's why Jesus responds the way he does. He's caught in his own words, and he's glad to be caught, as Luther says. So when we cry out to God, we often cry out to him, basically asking him to be true to what he said and to deliver on his promises. And that might seem awfully brazen and bold in our prayers to do that, basically to tell God to do his job, to be true to who he is. But that's actually what he gives us to say over and over in the Psalms.

so when we when we pray to god and we're asking him for something that he's already promised us we're basically presenting him back with his word and saying okay you've said that if we confess our sins you are faithful and just to forgive our sins and therefore i'm asking you to forgive me according to the promise of your word and the the comfort is that he will because he is when he gives us his word he gives us himself and therefore he will always he will always abide by that which he's promised yeah this is i mean what we see uh in hebrews that one of the things that is true about god is that he cannot lie as this this is a primary thing about god it's he can't he can't lie or as uh rod rosenblatt says and i agree if asked by god at the gates of heaven why he should

let him in his response will simply be because you promised that's it yeah yeah yeah no no no i don't have to present my resume no or make some long list of reasons as to why why god should let me in no yeah because you promised yeah you said so that's why yeah you're a god of your word and therefore we can present your words back to you knowing that you will hear them and actually be be delighted in hearing them i mean we we have a we have a small replica of this all the time when it comes to parenting right how many times that little kids come to their parents and ask for something and maybe the mom or the dad's like i don't know maybe later or i don't know i don't think that's a good idea and what is it what does a child say but you promised yeah even as uh as

children approach their parents in that way and parents are caught then right well yeah i guess i did you know parents feel this obligation to to to fulfill whatever word they gave to their children even begrudgingly well if that if it's like that in the case of human parents and it's it's certainly like that in the case of our father if we approach him and say but you promised you you gave me your word that this was going to be what you did this this is going to be what you gave well then god will not not begrudgingly but uh quite joyfully he will be happy actually to do that i mean this is this is sometimes when we pray it feels like we're just reminding god you know, of, of things that he said, things that he's promised.

But the thing is, God loves that. He's not the kind of parent who is unhappy when we, his children approach him and say, but you promised. He actually enjoys that because that means that we're listening to him, that we're, that we're living by the promises of his word. And not only that, but we have the boldness and confidence to approach him and to put those words back in front of him and say, okay, listen, God, you said this.

therefore i'm asking you to fulfill it yeah i mean and we've seen this numerous times with moses when god does get upset and moses has to be like hey you can't do that thing that you kind of want to do right now because the nations will say you're a liar they'll say you were unable to deliver on your promises so you can't do it and god's like yeah you're right yeah it's like god sets up these situations you know he's he says what what what strikes us initially is just like like whoa what are you just gonna destroy the whole nation and start over with moses you know what what's going on but this is like god's invitation to this to for moses to respond to the way he does he's like asking moses implicitly to to put before him his words and his character

and his honor and his name and that gives god then the opportunity to respond as our father to to moses and he's like yeah yeah you're right okay i won't destroy the innocent with the wicked uh i will be merciful and i will preserve a remnant in israel yeah because the the promise that god made essentially that moses is saying is like hey you could have grabbed me by the bernie bush and we could have just you know wandered off into the promised land you sent me over there to deliver these people so yeah that's what you have to do it has to be their children to be those people can't just be me you had me at the book like why don't why did you even send me over there this you didn't make those promises to me and my my you know children it

was to their children and uh and god is trapped with his own words and and does it yeah yeah it points to his fidelity it points to his uh his his fatherly care and concern for us and then it points ultimately to his uh his sticking by his word and rejoicing when we stick by that same word and and uh hold that up before him and giving him an opportunity to to demonstrate his uh his mercy toward us that's it and that is 40 minutes so we got through we got through some man we get three chapters down three chapters yeah we're going to return to the medianites and we're going to hear about the fate of Balaam next time. Oh, coming full circle

to Balaam. Full circle. Well, guys, we will see you next week. Hey, if you're living anywhere, you know, in Austin, Des Moines, Minneapolis, or anywhere near those, we got city events this spring, March, April, and May in those places. Go over

to Christ's Old Fast Go to City Events page, check it out. If you live anywhere near those places, we'd love to hang out with you. It's free. All you gotta do is register. Chad, I will see you in Austin. Won't be long now. Won't be long. And we're only about a month away.

So I'll see you in Austin. And before that, I'll see you next week. All right. Sounds good. See you then.