Numbers 31 - War Against the Midianites | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church
The Bible by David Alley · David Alley
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (content.rss.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
In this video listen to Numbers 31 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.
In Numbers 31 They are now taking on the source of their temptation, and going to war against the forces which led Israel into sin and temptation previously. Phinehas is chosen to be the leader. This is hugely sensible because he is resistant to the potential for temptation that exists and other Israelites succumbed to earlier in the book of Numbers.
In our spiritual lives, when we have faced temptation and been defeated, we must overcome, but to go straight into the battle in the same state as before is a disastrous idea. Instead we must rally behind one that has not succumbed to temptation, which is Christ. Jesus said the evil one “has nothing in me.” Jesus also overcame the devil during forty days of testing in the wilderness and overcame, unlike the Israelites whose 40 years of testing in the desert was a disaster. We should take on those things that affect us in prayer, humility and bedding the guidance and leadership of Christ.
Our prayer should be that we “love righteousness, and hate wickedness.” Everything captured is destroyed except animals and unmarried women, essentially the girls. Passages like these sound horrific to the modern worldly mind, but spiritually the lesson is apt. We must not fall again into the same sin which previously entrapped us. We must be careful to remove all the sources of future temptation. The modern mind doesn’t really equate how abhorrent sin is to God, and how he sees all things from an eternal perspective.
God could easily have destroyed the Midianites via an earthquake or some other method, but in using Israel, we are taught a valuable lesson in confronting sin. These numbers of captured items are huge. 675000 sheep, 72000 cattle, 61000 donkeys, 32000 unmarried women.
The plunder from the defeat of the one who antagonised is a picture of what treasures are available to those who overcome sin. The rewards and treasury of Christ are huge when we press in and defeat the adversary who holds us back.