Awesome Hands – Part 134: “Give him a charge in their sight”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Audio Links

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.



Awesome Hands – Part 134

"Give him a charge in their sight"

May 20, 2018

We are continuing our study in the Awesome Hands series by looking at a few new scenarios that the Israelites are contending with as they their way to the promised land.

With both of these situations, we can learn how we should approach the Lord with questions we have on how to deal with every day things which happen to us.

The first situation is found in Number 27.

Num 27:1  Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
Num 27:2  And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
Num 27:3  Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons.
Num 27:4  Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father.

As we just read, these daughters are in a situation which doesn’t have a clear answer or a current path to take for helping them solve their problem according to the law.

They specifically mention that their father was not one of the ones that stood with Korah, and we know this is true because all of those were swallowed up by the earth, but they felt is necessary to point out that he died in his own sin. This is just saying that his sins were not passed on to them as was the case in some of the law of Moses.

Exo 34:6  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
Exo 34:7  Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

With this scenario, Moses also knew he needed to find the course of action to take, so he petitions the Lord on behalf of these daughters.

Num 27:5  And Moses brought their cause before the LORD.
Num 27:6  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Num 27:7  The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.

Not only was their cause just to bring to the Lord, the Lord uses this occasion to create a new statute of judgment for the people to follow concerning inheritance.

Num 27:8  And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.
Num 27:9  And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.
Num 27:10  And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren.
Num 27:11  And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.

When looking at this scenario, we should consider that there was no precedence for what to do in this situation. However, there was an order to things in how the daughters knew they could go to Moses to present their case to have a conclusion reached for them.

This is no different than with Christians today, especially when we know the Lord is working all things after the counsel of His own will and that He gives us guidance via the Word of God.

The example to remember with these daughters is multi-faceted. They believed that the Lord would provide them an inheritance because He said the children of Israel would inherit the promised land.

We are not told that they secretly murmured or became discontent with their situation but instead brought it to Moses.

They also did not let the death of their father, which of necessity had their male line of inheritance right die with him, stop them from inheriting the land promised to their family with all the rest of Israel.

This is the same concept of selling all we have in order to purchase the land which holds the pearl of great price. The reason why these two concepts merge is that they were willing to do what it took to receive their promise.

Mat 13:45  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Mat 13:46  Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

The Lord promises us all that He never puts too much temptation on us that we can’t handle and that there is always a way out, but how much do we actually believe this by showing this belief in our ACTIONS?

1Co 10:13  There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

There are many temptations which we face daily which can easily have us questioning why the Lord would do a certain thing to us, or others, without considering that He works it all for our good.

These daughters could have followed different courses of action, but they chose to follow the course of action that led to God being the Head of their decision.

Immediately after dealing with this situation, we see in scripture that Moses is confronted with his own sins.

When you analyze the proximity in scripture of what just happened with these daughters, and their reliance on believing that the Lord truly is faithful, we can easily see that Moses is now being given direct guidance on He Himself coming to the Lord for what to do about a future situation with who will SUCCEED Moses.

Immediately after dealing with these daughters, we see these verses:

Num 27:12  And the LORD said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel.
Num 27:13  And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered.
Num 27:14  For ye rebelled against my commandment in the desert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify me at the water before their eyes: that is the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.

See, these verses seem so out of place next to each other, but they are perfectly unified in this chapter. The group of daughters could have easily rebelled in their hearts and minds that the Lord has not given them an inheritance due to it dying with their father.

Yet they respected the ways in which the Lord did things, and they presented their father's right to inheritance to the Lord.

Now, Moses is being presented with the land that the Israelites will inherit but that he himself will not be allowed to enter. In a lot of ways, this is a test for Moses, and it is certainly an example for us to learn from.

After this reminder to Moses that he will not inherit the promised land, and while also being shown the land itself when he goes up on the mount, Moses replies to the Lord with this:

Num 27:15  And Moses spake unto the LORD, saying,
Num 27:16  Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,
Num 27:17  Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.

Moses knows that when he is gone, the Israelites will need someone to guide them. He also is smart enough to realize that they will need to be specifically told who this is. Otherwise, they would have no one to shepherd them.

They also wouldn’t have anyone they could take their frustrations out on, like they tend to do with Moses all the time, but I digress.

Num 27:18  And the LORD said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him;
Num 27:19  And set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight.
Num 27:20  And thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient.
Num 27:21  And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the LORD: at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.

The Lord has just established the succession of leadership from Moses to Joshua, even though the finality has not yet happened and will not happen until we see it in Deuteronomy.

Deu 34:1  And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,
Deu 34:2  And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea,
Deu 34:3  And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar.
Deu 34:4  And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.
Deu 34:5  So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
Deu 34:6  And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
Deu 34:7  And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
Deu 34:8  And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
Deu 34:9  And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the LORD commanded Moses.

Joshua is, from this time on, Moses' minister/servant. We know that this is his status from the start of the book of Joshua.

I mention these things to show that we should always be planning ahead in our lives, even though we do not fully know what the Lord will be doing with us in the future.

The things we do know, which are happening in the present, are the things we can consider and act upon now. In conjunction with that, we can also be planning for various situations that happen in our future.

This is akin to counting the cost in our actions no matter what situations we face and the decisions we make while facing them.

There is no telling what Israel would have done if the Lord had not causes these daughters to come to Moses with their situation of inheritance to then lead Moses to consider who would inherit his role with the people of God. However, we know that we are given these examples so that we know that the Lord would have us to PLAN things OUT ahead of time as much as possible.

Even though these situations are narrow in the scope of this topic of preparation, these concepts that we can see in these stories extend to everything we do in our daily lives.

Of course, we know the Lord is working all things after His own counsel, but that was true in these stories as well. What we can see though, is that these daughters followed the steps needed in order to petition the Lord.

Then Moses, too, petitions the Lord for what he should do.

This should scream out to us that we are to ALWAYS, IN ALL THINGS, petition the Lord for guidance and direction.

It really can’t be said any better than Christ Himself said it:

Luk 14:28 (ESV)  For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
Luk 14:29  Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
Luk 14:30  saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'
Luk 14:31  Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
Luk 14:32  And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
Luk 14:33  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

“Renouncing all that we have,” in the context of our topic today, includes renouncing our own carnal-minded thoughts and reasoning with whatever we are dealing.

We should also petition the Lord in guide us in all things, and take actions that we know have good examples of success scripturally speaking.

In other words, we should not depart from the things we have learned, even as spiritual children, because it is those things which will guide us faithfully.

Pro 22:3  (ESV) The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.
Pro 22:4  The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor and life.
Pro 22:5  Thorns and snares are in the way of the crooked; whoever guards his soul will keep far from them.
Pro 22:6  Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Other related posts