Numbers – Chapter 31

Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live?Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. Numbers 31:15-16 – Let’s state this upfront, this is a difficult chapter to process through. Clearly the Lord’s blessing was behind this for we see Him be the one to give the marching orders. He abundantly provides for His people through the spoils of war, and we see there was a sovereign protection over Israel for they didn’t even lose one solider in the whole battle. Yet in this God ordained battle we see some difficult commands being spoken such as killing all the women that hadn’t yet slept with a man that we were kept alive after the battle. Why would God say this? The reason is stated above, while the Israelites apparently forgot what these ladies had led them into, God hadn’t. It was the Midianite women that led Israel into the worship of Baal and sexual immorality. While the people didn’t see them as a danger, God knew they were and commanded His people to rid themselves of this danger. Again, this is a difficult passage to read due to these harsh commands of the Lord, but it does remind us how serious the Lord is against the things that lure us away from Him. He doesn’t give grace to such things, and nor should we. He doesn’t see letting these lures just hang around a bit as alright like we might. God’s command is a complete end to anything and everything that would pull us away from Him. What then have you allowed to remain in your life that you know has the potential to lure you away from a devotion to the Lord? If God had a chance to speak into your life about that thing, what do you think He’d say about it? I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3381

And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, as a memorial for the people of Israel before the Lord. Numbers31:54 – Not a man lost in battle and an abundance of provision left for the people. That is something to be thankful for and that’s exactly what Moses and Eleazar were, thankful. And they expressed that gratitude by bringing their offering to God. If you then were to take a count of everything you still have after all the battles you’ve gone through would it be something worth showing God some gratitude over? Maybe you have lost some in the process and the provision afterwards wouldn’t be considered an abundance. You though are still here, still standing, still have provision for the day, still have loved ones in your story, and still have the promise of eternal life with Christ. We really do have so much to be thankful over. Let’s be sure God knows our level of gratitude by the way we give back to Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1447

Numbers 31 – Pastor Mac Daily DEVO Then the officers who were over the units of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—went to Moses ⁴⁹and said to him, “Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one is missing.” Numbers 31:48-49 – A massive battle takes place with the people of Israel in our chapter against the nation of Midian. Why did Israel go up against Midian? In Numbers 25 we see how the women of Midian were used to lure the men of Israel away from God because Balaam couldn’t curse them, and all this was based of the directions given to them by Balaam (see Numbers 31:16). Notice though the message of the commanders in our passage, not one man is missing from our side. In their 40 year journey, when they turned to sin, hundreds and thousands of people perished, but in this chapter we see Israel following the directions the Lord gives and what’s the end result? Not one is missing. Rejection and disobedience to the Lord will lead to our death, but a faithful obedience and acceptance of the Lord’s way will lead to life. Don’t be deceived by the lures of this world seeking to tell you a different message. The beauty of scripture is we get to see story after story of people making both choices, God or the world. We see over and over the same result of life when the choice was the Lord and death when the choice was the world. We can be naïve and believe our story will be different than the hundreds of generations before us, or our story will be different now this time we turn to sin rather than how it worked out last time, but the truth is our story will end the same. When we turn from the Lord and turn to sin, we’ll find despair and death. In Jesus though we can find hope and life. Make the choice we see Israel made in chapter 31 to finally follow through with the direction the Lord gave them. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2312