21, Numbers chapter 21. Give everyone a chance to head to their glasses and things. Numbers chapter 21. A few years ago, I was working in my yard, and I went over to the hose reel to unroll my hose to do some work. And when I went to reach for the hose reel, it moved. And my hose is black. It's made out of black rubber. And there was a black racer just warming itself on there. And when I reached for it, The black racer moved and I thought I was reaching for the hose end and I was reaching for the snake. And I did not scream like a girl or anything like that. I'm not terrified of snakes or anything. But when the hose moves and you don't expect it, it startles you. My feet probably came off the ground a little bit. And I got a little bit startled by that about a year ago. My son, Hudson, and I, we went out. It was for his graduation trip. He was a senior in high school. We went out west. We were hiking in Arizona. We were near Tucson. And we were in Saguaro National Park, where all the big, famous cactuses with the arms and things are. And as we get on these hiking trails, there's this sign. And it tells you about the 13 different kinds of rattlesnakes. that live in that national park. So I'm looking at them and I'm like, okay, so this means I have to look where I'm stepping, because they have a lot of different kinds of rattlesnakes here. Snakes are one of those kinds of things that many people are afraid of, and that certainly can be a danger, right? I mean, we're going to see serpents in this passage, but they can be a danger to people. You know, none of us really wants to get bit by a rattlesnake or a coral snake or something like that here in Florida. And we're going to see that the Lord sends some snakes in to be a judgment on the Israelites. And then he also provides a deliverance from those snakes. And we also see in this a reference to the New Testament, a picture of Jesus, actually. Numbers chapter 21. And when King Arad, the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies, then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners. Now this is interesting because Israel hasn't even gotten in the land yet. They're just going through the area. Sometimes critics of the Bible will come to the Bible and say these mean old Israelites They just came into this land and these poor peaceful Canaanites were just sitting there, living there peacefully, and the mean old Israelites were commanded by their mean old God of the Old Testament to kill all these people. But actually, if you look at the interactions, Israel is attacked long before they attack anybody else. Here, by King Arad, and as we saw at other times, Edom doesn't let them pass through. Later we're going to learn about other kings. of the Amalekites who want to attack them. And so it's a much more complex thing than just these peaceful Canaanites just got attacked by the mean old Israelites. That's not what's going on. Actually, they're not doing anything to instigate against this man at this point in his kingdom, but he decides to make a preemptive strike. And he takes them prisoners. Now that is not a minor thing. In the ancient world, when you had a battle with someone, and you captured some prisoners, those people became your slaves and they were sold into slavery. This isn't just, hey, we got a few prisoners, pay me a little ransom and you get them back. These are family members who are probably gone. Hard to get back. They get sold into slavery and they're gone into slavery somewhere. And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord. Vows we find in the Old Testament. There were instructions on how to fulfill a vow and sacrifices to give. There are no commandments in the New Testament to make a vow. In other words, in the Old Testament, if you wanted to be a Nazirite, for example, that involved a vow. In the New Testament, we're never told, you should take a vow every once a year, or you should, you follow what I'm saying? In other words, I'm not saying a vow is wrong, but it's not as much a part of New Testament worship. But in the Old Testament, it was very much part of worship. And what they do is they vow unto the Lord. And what a vow is, is they say, God, if you do this for me, then I'll serve you in this way. If thou will indeed deliver this people unto my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. All right? And utterly destroy has the idea of we will dedicate this to you. We're not going to go in, we're not asking for victory to get all the spoils of war. In the ancient world, it was considered that the spoils belonged to the victors. You went into battle, and you defeated somebody else, and you captured their city. You got all the stuff you wanted out of it. And certainly that still happens in war in many ways today. Generally, the modern West kind of tried to discourage their troops from that. So we had a young man in our church many years ago, and he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he was moving in, and I was helping him move into his apartment in this area. And he said, look at this. And he pulled out this little 9 millimeter Makarov pistol, Russian made. And he said, I took this off a guy that if I told you his name, you would have heard it on the news. He said, I'm not really supposed to have it, but. But you know what, during World War II, that was a different story. GIs came back all the time with German Lugers and Japanese bayonets and all kinds of things. And that was just common. Today, it's a little bit discouraged. But in that ancient world, what they're saying is, you give us the victory and we will defeat these people. We're not asking you to give us victory so we can get enriched. We're asking you to give us victory to carry out what you want us to do, and that is to receive this land. And so we're going to utterly destroy their cities. And the Lord hearkened unto the voice of Israel. So he heard their cry to him when they took a vow. A vow was always made unto your God. Now, in the case of the other nations, their gods aren't real. They're idols. But in the case here of the Lord, the vow was made to the Lord. And so the Lord hears their voice, and he delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities, and he called the name of the place Hormah, which has the idea of destruction. So we see the Lord already watching out for Israel, even in the midst of their wilderness wanderings. They're in the wilderness wandering because they're being chastened of the Lord, right? But we see the Lord hasn't completely abandoned his children here. And we can say the same is true for us as Christians. That even sometimes we may make a sinful choice and chastening may come into our life, but if you're genuinely a believer in Jesus Christ, God doesn't abandon you. He doesn't completely abandon you if you're genuinely a believer in Jesus Christ. Verse 4, and they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to come past the land of Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. In other words, they don't get to go on that highway that they asked the Edomites if they could pass through. They've got to go around it. So they're not very happy. This is hard. Hard going. Hard walking. Last year, Well, I guess it's 2023 now. I had the chance to go with one of our missionaries and go to Central Asia. I was in Kyrgyzstan. And when we were there, there was one day, we were teaching and we had some free time one day, and we did a little bit of hiking in the mountains there. And we were in this, it was a national park for them. And so we're trying to find, we see this trail and we want to get to it. And so it's just up this hill, but between us and that is a boulder field. And so we start making our way across the boulder field, but it's snowy. So you're on snowy boulders. And I mean, you're talking about literally the kind of thing, the boulders are the size of anything from the size of this pulpit to the size of a car to, but there's like, you could easily slip and your leg go get stuck down in something or you could turn your ankle and get hurt. So I'm picking my way through there really, really slowly. Once I got, I was very thankful to be over that boulder field. It was about 50 yards wide, but it probably took me 20 minutes to get across it because I did not want to get hurt. In Central Asia, I didn't have any idea what kind of medical attention I might be able to get. And so I went really slowly across that boulder field, and then we climbed up to the trail, and then we hiked up to about 8,000 feet and saw a waterfall and stuff. It was a beautiful place. But it was interesting, because we made a mile of progress on the trail in the amount of time it took me to cross a 50-yard-wide boulder field. Because it was just much more difficult. These people are walking on this trail that's just much more difficult. You've got to remember, this is the whole nation. So they've got their children, their elderly, all of this with them. We're not just talking about the young fit men with the right equipment. We're talking about the whole nation. But notice their response. And the people spake against God and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread. All right? Again, we see them murmuring against the Lord. The Lord has brought them all the way to here, but here they're murmuring against God and they say, why did you bring us here into this wilderness? There's not enough water. There's not the bread we want. You give us manna every day, but we're tired of that. We're tired of that manna. We want something else. Now, if God had wanted to destroy them, he had multiple chances, right? And in fact, why are they still wandering in this wilderness? Because they got to the edge of the promised land that God had promised to them, and they sent in spies. And 10 of the spies were faithless and said, we can't take the land. And they refused to go in. And then finally, God said, well, fine, you're going to wander in the wilderness. And they're like, no, we'll take it. And then they didn't have the Lord behind them, and they failed in that first attempt. And now they're wandering in the wilderness. They're wandering in the wilderness because God's chastening is on them. So at a certain point, Some of this is of their own doing. A year ago or so, we had a man who lives here in Winter Garden. It's a sad story, but he was drunk, passed out in our breezeway over here. Our teens were here. So, you know, you get this man here that's a stranger. We don't know who he is, but we've got young people, some of them 13 years old, right? Younger. And so they found him here. And in fact, the teens were playing a game and they had a smoke machine going, like a fog machine, and it set off the fire alarm. And the fire department showed up. and saw smoke. We were thankful that we intercepted them before they took an ax to one of our doors or something like that. But this guy slept through the fire alarm. If you've been here for one of our fire alarms, you know you probably still have hearing damage from it. I'm exaggerating a little, but it's pretty loud. He slept through the fire alarm. Well they, you know, finally the police roused him. The police were called and he was escorted off property and these kinds of things. Well he showed up another time and, you know, we called the police again because he was passed out drunk in a very much similar spot. And when the police were called, you know, he's yelling at me, how dare you do this to me? Why'd you call the police on me? I'm thinking, well, You were already escorted off the property once by the police for being drunk here, and now you're acting like you didn't have any idea that this would happen, and we're just mean and picking on you. You're falling asleep near the doors where children come and go for their ministries. We don't know if you're safe. We don't know who you are. We just can't have this going on. But he's acting like the whole world's out to get him, like his life's bad just because everybody's picking on him. No, we want to have compassion on people and give them the gospel and help them where we can. But on the other hand, you have to be careful that if you blow up your own life, then you can't blame everybody else. Say, well, why are all these bad things happening to me? I haven't had much experience with jail ministries, but I have pastor friends who have. And they said, generally, when you minister to people in the jail, everybody you talk to says, well, I was framed. I didn't commit any crimes. I was framed. The other guys, they're the ones who did it, and it fell on me. So everybody in jail is innocent. That's really the miscarriage of justice, is there's nobody in jail that really deserves to be there. All the people that deserve to be there are walking the streets, evidently. Well, obviously, we know that's not the case. Many of these people did do the crime, but they're shifting the blame, and they're acting as if it wasn't their fault they ended up in jail. The Israelites, this is our sinful heart, are doing that same thing, right? We have a tendency to shift blame, to blame shift. That's what our sinful human hearts do. It was his fault. In fact, we see that from the very beginning, right? God says to Adam, did you eat of that fruit that I told you not to eat from that tree? And what does Adam say? Yes, Lord, I sinned. No, he says, God, that woman you gave me. So two things, my wife's fault, my wife did it. It's not very leader-like, is it? Does that sound like husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church? No. It's his wife's fault. And then what does he say? That woman that you gave me, and God, you gave me a defective woman. It's your fault too, God. You gave me this lousy woman. You could have given me a better one. As if it wasn't his fault. And then he looks at Eve and says, what did you do? And she said, that snake. That serpent, she doesn't say, yes, I sinned. She says, no, it was that serpent. He tricked me. I didn't know any better. When you read her interaction with the snake, she knows full well she's not supposed to eat that fruit. Adam knew full well he wasn't supposed to eat that fruit. Then the Lord says to the snake, he doesn't ask Satan, he knows Satan's response is gonna be, he says, okay, it's gonna be a double curse here. One on the physical snake and one on the serpent, and then on the spiritual serpent, Satan, okay? And the spiritual serpent, we learn, the seed of the woman, that promised one, the Messiah, Jesus, will crush the head of the serpent. The serpent will wound the heel of the son, but the son will crush his head. And we have this gospel picture. Now, these people have been faithless many, many times here. So the Lord sends these serpents in. In other words, their own sinfulness got them in this situation. Now they're in a situation where the Lord is providing. They do have food and water, but it's not the way they want it. And so they're faithless, and they're grumbling against God and against Moses, who God sent to lead them. And the Lord sends fiery serpents among the people. Fiery probably describing the burning sensation of being bit by them. All right. And much people of Israel died. In other words, there's this infestation of these snakes. We don't know what kind of snake, probably some kind of venomous snake. There's many different venomous snakes in that part of the world. We could take guesses at it, but they're venomous snakes. There's just something really intimidating about that, isn't there, about the snake sticking its fangs into you? It's just a very intimidating thing. And so this is kind of a horrific scenario. And people are dying because of it. But it's not merely, we have to understand again here, God isn't a mean bully. He's not a cosmic gangster who just has more power and likes to throw people around and beat them up or something like that. He's not just like holding you for protection money. No, these people have, God has been patient and patient and patient. He delivered them from the Canaanite enemies just right before this, didn't he? He had shown his mercy and grace to them. But here, they're saying the only reason God brought us out here was to kill us. That makes no sense. How many times has he delivered them? The only reason you brought us out here is to kill us. A couple times as a pastor, I've ministered to people who, started to have dementia. And I remember in one occasion where this man, he'd been married for 55 years or something, and he was quite agitated. You know, and I understand. Dementia is brain damage, so I'm not blaming him. But I remember him saying to me, he's like, I can't trust my wife. She's trying to steal all my money. I'm thinking, well, she's got you in this care facility where she's making sure you get fed and clothed and taken care of and all these kinds of things. And trust me, I've seen she's not living high on the hog. She comes here and visits you every day. But in his mind, there was this paranoia that his wife was out to steal all his stuff. That doesn't make any sense. As an outsider, you look at him and go, you've been married 55 years. You'd think if she was after the money, she'd have taken it sooner, right? I mean, this is really the long game if you wait 55 years to take all the money. And she wouldn't come visit you every day. Like, she'd be driving a nicer car. She'd be taking long vacations. You wouldn't see her. She'd be on a cruise or something. But that's not what was going on. She was very faithful in visiting him and making sure he got the right care. But in his mind, because of the brain damage of dementia, he was confused about these things. And there was a paranoia that said, she's out to get me. But we know that doesn't make sense, that only we go, oh yes, he has dementia, that's why he's not thinking right. But this is almost, it's like a spiritual paranoia that the Israelites have here. We're out in this wilderness because God wants to kill us here! which it makes no sense. You've been there for years. You're near the end of your wilderness wanderings, and you've been here for years, and God has taken care of you. He led you out of Egypt. He defeated the Egyptians with the 10 plagues. He led you through the Red Sea and defeated Pharaoh's army. He brought you through the wilderness and has given you water every time. He gave you manna from heaven. He's given you quail. He's met all your needs, and yet now you still say, God brought us here to kill us. It's a complete attack on the character of God. In other words, it is the height of faithlessness. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he may take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. Now they notice, once the trial comes, once the chastening comes, oh, I sinned. But this is what happens, this is like what happens with sinners, right? For us as sinners, we get involved in sin and we have a reason. Well, the reason I have to do this sin is my life's not going right. You don't understand, I had to steal from my employer. He wasn't paying me enough. You have to understand, I had to punch that guy in the nose. He was getting on my nerves. In other words, we have a reason. And then the chastening comes. I've seen this a couple times where men left their wives for another woman, men that were attending our church. They're like well, and then I talked to them. I say you know why you've got children with this woman, and you know what's the problem? What why are you doing this and they're like well? Don't I have a right to be happy? You're not going to find happiness by defying God's commandments You're going to run off with this woman and in both cases that I specifically have in mind the wife was prettier I Mean honestly I'm looking at this, and I'm going you're dumb I Like, your wife is prettier. She's a better woman. This woman you're running off with has no character. She's not good looking. But for some reason, you're attracted to her. Because sin blinds us to sin. And then in a couple of cases, I saw these men come back to their wives and say, forgive me. I was foolish. You're so much better. Because you know what happens? Is that people... You know, you get married, and then you just have the everyday of life in marriage. That's just the way it works. And sometimes people think, well, this isn't as exciting as it was when we were dating. And then they meet somebody else that they flirt with, and they go, oh, this is exciting. I have the excitement back. Well, guess what? When you get into everyday life with them, it'll be everyday life too. And then they realize this person has no character, and this is a problem, and they go back. In two cases, these men went back to their spouse. Thank God we prayed for that. And especially since in one case, they had children that were like five and three. And you look at that and you go, wow, all of a sudden, now you know what you did. And then even years later, they're saying, I was so foolish. I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. That's kind of where the Israelites are here. We're grumbling against God. God brought us into the wilderness to kill us. And then the chastening comes and they say, oh, Lord, forgive us, we sinned. Now it wakes them up to their sin. The chastening wakes them up to their sin. And so God gives a solution to the Israelites, a way that they can be healed from the bite of the serpent, a miraculous way. And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole. And it shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten when he looketh upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole. And it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Okay, now this was the Bronze Age. What that means is most of their tools were made out of bronze. It's about right on the edge of the Iron Age and right at the Iron Bronze Age edge, but a lot of tools are still being made out of bronze and there are a lot of people with skill to work things and fashion things out of bronze and so they're making this image of this serpent out of bronze. Now we have a reference to this in the New Testament in John chapter 3. John's Gospel chapter 3. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. And he says, verse 10, Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Are you the teacher of Israel, and you don't know the things I've just told you? That unless a man be born again, he won't see the kingdom of God? And Nicodemus says, well, what, can I go back into my mother's womb and be born a second time? You should know this. In other words, there's Old Testament truth you're overlooking here. You shouldn't be an Old Testament scholar and teacher and have overlooked this. Verily, verily, that means truly, truly, I say unto thee, we speak what we do know and testify that we have seen and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? In other words, if I tell you earthly things and they're true, and you don't believe it, why would you believe me about things you can't see in heaven, right? And no man hath ascended up into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. In other words, nobody's gone up to heaven to see what's there, but I'm telling you I've been there, I'm from there, and I can tell you what it's like. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Just as the serpent was put on that pole in the wilderness, and anybody who looked at that serpent was made alive, they didn't die from their wounds. In faith, they trusted God's promise that looking at the serpent and trusting God would deliver them from the bite of that serpent. And it did. It miraculously rescued them. Even so, Jesus said he would be lifted up. How was Jesus lifted up? On the cross. that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Sinful hearts make us love lies and falsehoods rather than the truth. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved, that he that doeth truth cometh unto the light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they were wrought in God. Now, I don't know that we often think of this, but there is a reference here to the brazen serpent, the bronze serpent in the wilderness, the brass serpent. There's a reference to that in the passage with John 3.16. All right? Most famous verse in the New Testament, John 3.16, for God so loved the world. The two verses before is, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so much the Son of Man be lifted up. In other words, we're told that this points to Jesus' death on the cross. that just as you have to in that Old Testament time when you've been bit by the serpent, look at that brazen serpent on that pole and believe that God would rescue you from that bite in the same way, the only solution to our sin is that Jesus was lifted up on a cross and our only hope is to look to Him to be saved. Our sin is like the bite of that snake and it condemns us. to spiritual death, and the only hope we have is to trust God's promise in Jesus Christ. Jesus was lifted up on a cross to save us, just as this serpent was put on a cross to save the children of Israel from the bites of these fiery serpents. And so what we have here is a picture of Christ. God didn't do this just to rescue the Israelites. He did. But you see, God's plans have more implications than that. And His plans say, hey, this symbol that I'm going to use to rescue these people from the bite of this snake will point to something even greater. It'll point to Jesus and Jesus' rescue of people from the bite of sin. In a sense, it is sort of the bite of a serpent, sin, isn't it? I mean, serpents and sin are tied together in the Bible. Not because snakes are inherently sinful, but because Satan took on that form of a snake, Tempteve. And then here we see these serpents killing people, except by God's miraculous healing power, here rescuing them. Verse 10. And the children of Israel set forward and pitched in Oboth. And they journeyed from Oboth and pitched in Ege-Avayarim, in the wilderness, which is before Moab, toward the sun rising." Now, Edom is south, so they were going around Edom, and they're going up north toward Moab on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, toward the sun rising. That indicates to us that's the east, right? From thence they removed and pitched in the valley of Zerud. And from thence they removed and pitched in the other side of Arnon, which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites. For Arnon is the border of Moab between Moab and the Amorites. Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord that he did in the Red Sea and in the books of Arnon." All right, so evidently there were some history books written down about this. There were some chronicles written down about this. We don't have those today. We have what God has inspired for us in his history, and this is true and correct. But evidently there was a point, and as a reference is made to it here, that someone had written down some of the stories of the journeys, the chronicles that they had made along this way. And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down in the dwelling of Ar and lieth upon the border of Moab. And from thence they went to Be'er, that is the well where the Lord spoke unto Moses. Gather the people together and I will give them water. Now this is interesting because Be'er, it looks like the word beer. Be'er is actually the Hebrew word for a well. And so the place is called well. And the Lord told Moses here, now notice something. God is leading them all this way. They're going through all this area, but this is not randomly. They're not just wandering off somewhere. God is leading them. He's guiding them. He's caring for them throughout this process. And what we find is that the Lord provides water. And the Israelites, now we're going to see, sing in praise to God. Verse 17, then Israel sang this song, spring up, O well, sing ye unto it. The princes digged the well, and the nobles and the people digged it by the direction of the lawgiver with their staves, and from the wilderness they went to Matanah. And from Matanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth, and from Bamoth in the valley that is in the country of Moab to the top of Pisgah which looketh toward Jeshimon. Now Mount Pisgah overlooks the promised land. There's a lot of topographical change in this part of the world. If you were to go there, if you ever have the chance or if you've been there, if you're near the Dead Sea, say you're in the Judean wilderness down by, say, Masada or Qumran, some of that area, it's mountainous, it looks very much like mountain areas that we might have in deserts, say in Arizona or in the high desert in California, if you were in, say, Joshua Tree National Park or somewhere like that, especially mountainous areas like that. It's just, there's not a lot of vegetation and there's a lot of just rocky mountains. Not Rockies in the sense of, you know, snow-capped Rockies in Colorado, but in the sense of just desert mountains. But yet you can stand there and easily see across the Dead Sea and see over to the land of Moab and Edom. In fact, you can survey nearly entire Dead Sea from those peaks. And so here is Mount Pisgah, and they're at the top or near top of Mount Pisgah. And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, Let me pass through thy land. We will not turn into the fields or into the vineyards. We will not drink of the waters of the well, but we will go along by the king's highway until we be past thy borders." In other words, we want to pass through. They're telling the Amorites, give us permission to pass through on the highway. We won't bother any of your fields. We won't trample your crops. We won't bother anything. Again, like the Edomites, Sihon is not going to give them permission to do that. And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border, but Sihon gathered all his people together and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and he came to Jehoz and fought against Israel. And so what does he decide? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to war against them. I'm going to wage war on the Israelites. They're a threat. They're on my border. Now, it seems kind of strange because they just asked permission. Like, they were really there to invade you. Would you ask permission? Can we pass through on your roads? That doesn't seem like the way you do an invasion. I don't think on December 7, 1941, the Japanese said, can we come to Pearl Harbor? Right? In June of 1944, I don't think the Allies said to the Germans, do you mind if we come here to Normandy? We want to visit. That's not how invasions normally work. But yet Sihon decides that he's just going to take care of these Israelites right away. And again, as we see, it's not the Israelites instigating. They're having good relationships, trying to have good relationships with all these nations. And Sihon brings his nation together, puts his army together. And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon. For the border of the children of Ammon was strong. Now what we find is there's two rivers there, the Jabbok and the Arnon, and they flow down toward the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, which is the low point. And so they lived in this region by those rivers, and the Israelites, we find, by God's help, defeat Sihon and his army. And Israel took all these cities, and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, and Heshbon, and in the villages thereof. For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even into Arnon." So what we find is the Moabites had lost a battle to the Amorites, and Sihon had defeated him. But now Sihon, thinking that he was powerful, took on the Israelites, and he didn't realize that the Israelites had the Lord behind them. And so the Lord is now starting to give them this land, piece by piece. The conquest hasn't officially started yet. They're just defending themselves, and now God has already given them a bunch of cities on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Wherefore, they that speak in Proverbs say, Come into Heshbon. Let the city of Sion be built and prepared. There is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sion. It is a consumed hour of Moab and the lords of the high places of Arnon. We find that there was a parable about this land. Woe to thee, Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh. He hath given his sons that escaped and his daughters into captivity unto Sion, king of the Amorites. And again, we go back to this. War was very, very brutal that day. There was no, you know, like, oh, they're just civilians, leave them alone. No, the civilians that weren't part of the battle got taken as prisoners, as slaves. We have shot at them, Heshbon, as perished, even unto Diban. We have laid them waste, even from Nofah, which reacheth unto Madaba. The Madaba Plateau is a famous Kind of fertile area there. But again, the Lord has delivered them twice in this passage, right? He delivers them from Arad, the Canaanite king, and here from Sihon, the king of the Amorites. Verse 31, and thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites. God has now given this land into their keeping. It becomes their inheritance. And Moses sent to spy out Jazar, and they took the villages thereof and drove out the Amorites that were there. And they turned and went by the way of Bashan, and Og, the king of Bashan, went out against them, he and all his people, to the battle of Adrae. So they were heading now toward the land of Bashan, and this king decides, hey, these Israelites are dangerous. I'm going to go attack them. And the Lord said unto Moses, Fear him not, for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land, and thou shalt do to him as thou did unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon. Don't worry about him, I'm going to deal with him the same way I did Sihon. So here's this king Og, and he comes out and he attacks them as well. Again, the Israelites don't go and instigate this, they get attacked. And God says, don't worry, I'm going to give him into your hand. And the Lord does this. The Lord, again, is the one who's delivering Israel. Israel is not having military victory on their own. It's not merely their sheer numbers. It's not merely their military skill. It is the Lord. Even the Old Testament tells us that, right? The horse is prepared for battle, but the outcome is of the Lord. You can put all the armor on your horse and you can charge out to battle, but if God wants you to lose, you will lose. No matter how well prepared. So they smote him and his sons and all his people until there was none left of him alive and they possessed his land. And so now they possess that land on the eastern side of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee and some of it near the Dead Sea there as well. And they've taken all this land, not because they went in as conquerors, they were just trying to pass through and as they were trying to pass through, they were attacked, preemptively attacked, and the Lord delivers this land into their hand. He just gives it to them because he gives them victory. Again, we see God's watching over them. That's why in the middle of this, it's so shocking for them to say, you only brought us out here to kill us. When in the same chapter, all of a sudden they've inherited all kinds of cities and lands. No, God didn't bring you here to kill you. He brought you here to give you this land. You didn't want it in the first place. Now you're wandering in the wilderness, and now God's giving you victory. And it can happen to us, too, right? We can look at our life and go, well, yeah, but this isn't going right, or that isn't going right. I know a family member who had their kids in a private school, it was a good school, had good academics, but a lot of the other families there were quite wealthy. The kind of wealthy where their daughter turns 16 and they buy her a BMW 5 Series brand new for her 16th birthday. $75,000 car, $80,000 car, brand new for your birthday, happy birthday, you're 16, here's your BMW. And they said their daughter was driving a 2004 Toyota Matrix, something like that. He's like, mom, I drive this car and the kids kind of look at me funny. I'm driving a 20-year-old Toyota and they all have brand new BMWs. Now, the fact is that How many teenagers in the world have a car to drive? Worldwide, out of the 8 billion people on the planet, most don't own a car. And many teenagers don't. You're a teenager driving a car to school. Great. But what happens is you get yourself in a certain situation, and you can look at it and go, well, my life's not very good. I have a car, but I don't have a BMW. Right? We can look at these kind of scenarios I knew another scenario where a young lady was going to an expensive private school, and they set up her schedule for the year. And the way her schedule worked out, she was taking all these good classes and AP classes and honors classes, but the way it worked out was that the lunch period she was given, none of her friends were in. And she came home just in tears and told her mom, none of my friends is in my lunch period. This was a big enough school that there were multiple lunches that you're assigned to. So mom marched down to the principal's office and said, how did this happen? How could we let her have this? This is just terrible. At 16 years old, you can't have a lunch period without your friends. Now, I understand how you want to have a lunch period with your friends. But you have to demand of the school counselor that you rearrange her schedule and make room in one of these sections of the class that didn't have room because she wants to eat lunch with her friends. But really when you think about it, not eating lunch with your friends is not a big problem in life. It's hard. I know when you're a teenager that's a hard one. But the fact is that there are people who don't eat lunch at all. There are millions of people on this planet that don't get lunch most days. So instead of being thankful for the lunch we have, we get ungrateful And thankful for going to a very fine school, we get ungrateful that this rotten school put me in a lunch period with a bunch of other students that I am not friends with yet. You know, from a parenting perspective, it might be better to say, hey, make some new friends. You can keep your other friends, but it'd be good to make some new friends too. In a scenario where you could make some good friends. I can tell you right now that the people who are fleeing wildfires in California are not worried about what their lunch period is. I can almost guarantee there are teenagers who go to school there and right now they're a lot more worried about whether their house is going to survive than what lunch period they have. Right? But we do the same thing. We see God's blessings in our life, and He gives us great blessings, but yet there's something that's not the way I want it, and there's always going to be something your heart wants. Even if you were the richest person in the world, there are things Elon Musk can't buy because they're not for sale. He might have the money to buy most things, but there are things he can't buy because they're not for sale. And if he really wanted them, he could be unhappy. I'm not saying he's a godly man, or a good person, or whatever. All I'm saying is he's the richest person in the world, and even he, with all his resources, can't have everything he wants. We're never going to be in the place where we can have everything we want. And if what we worry about, we can waste our lives being ungrateful to God for the great many blessings he's given to us, instead of thanking him for the ones we have. Because there was nothing in this passage that wasn't God's blessing to them. and giving them deliverance from these armies and even providing water and food in the wilderness. They're not complaining that they didn't have any food to eat, they're just tired of the manna. I've got food, it's just not the food I want. You know, we have these, we call them first world problems, right? You ever been hungry and you go look in your pantry and you go, oh, there's nothing to eat. And you have enough food in there to feed 47 people for a couple of days. But you got nothing to eat. You don't have nothing to eat. There's just nothing you feel like eating right now. Or we go through the drive-thru in some fast food restaurant, and it takes three minutes longer than the last time. Oh, this is terrible. Never going here again. Did you get food to eat? Yeah, but it was three minutes longer. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not trying to defend bad service at fast food restaurants. All I'm saying is, many times we're ungrateful for God's many, many blessings. Instead of bowing our head and thanking God for the food, we're grumbling over the extra three minutes. And ultimately, like in this passage, just as the serpent was lifted up, so the Son of Man is lifted up. For us as redeemed sinners, there's always something to thank God for. Paul and Silas could sing praise to God in a jail Why? Because none of them could take away the eternal life that God had given to them. I read a quote recently by a pastor who was in Eastern Europe during the communist era. And he was arrested for being a pastor. And he preached to some of the fellow prisoners. And they were told, do not do that again. If you preach again, you will get a beating. So he said he and the other preachers in the prison said, you know what we decided? It's worth paying to preach for a beating. We'll decide to take a few beatings here and there so we can preach the gospel to other people. So he continued to preach the gospel. And he got a beating. And he said, we got to preach, which made us happy. And they got to beat us, which made them happy. So we were all happy. Now, obviously, that's kind of tongue-in-cheek. But the point is, how is it that somebody sitting in a really miserable prison, getting a beating, is thankful to be able to preach the gospel to people when we're sitting in a heated room grumbling about my life? Do you have eternal life? Do you have your needs met? Let's not be like the grumbling Israelites here. God is in the midst of working and giving them great things, giving them the land, but yet in the midst of it, they're complaining and saying, God just brought us here to kill us. They're accusing God foolishly. Let's not be faithless like they were. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this passage we can look at in numbers. We thank you that just as that serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so was our Savior Christ lifted up on the cross, and that all who look to that serpent were healed. So likewise, all who look in faith to Christ are healed from the sin that has brought death. We thank you that we can have eternal life through Christ and Christ alone. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.