We are concluding Chapter 33 today and the list of Israelite campsites in the wilderness.
"They left the mountains of Abiram and camped on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. There on the plains of Moab they camped along the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim." (Numbers 33:47-49) I performed a brief internet search to determine the distance between these two locations and it appears that the distance between Beth Jeshimoth and Abel Shittim was approximately seven miles. This means the camp of the Israelites took up at least the seven linear miles between the two locations on the map, not counting any overflow into the two locations, and not counting the width of the camp. You'll recall from Numbers 2 that the Lord instructed Israel to lay out their camp in a specific manner and in a specific order, which rendered a squarish/rectangular shape. Since some tribes numbered more than others, the shape was a bit longer than it was wide, but taking this shape into account many scholars estimate that the campsite of Israel along the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim may have taken up as much as forty-nine square miles!
We have already seen a number of things happen while Israel is at this campsite. They were here when the Moabite/Midianite alliance called for the prophet Balaam to curse Israel so these people could drive Israel from the region. It was here that Balaam, since he found himself unable to curse her, instructed Israel's enemies to engineer her downfall by means other than military. Balaam knew Israel could not be defeated from the outside because the Lord was with her army, but he believed Israel could be defeated from the inside if she fell away from her God and lost His protection. The prophet suggested that the heathen Midianite women should seduce Israelite men and draw them into idolatry by luring them to idolatrous feasts and religious ceremonies through feminine wiles. The plot was successful in causing a number of men to sin against the Lord, but it was not successful in turning the entire nation away from God. Due to this incident 24,000 men lost their lives but the nation was preserved and the Lord did not turn away from the people.
It was also at this campsite that Moses and Eleazar, the high priest of Israel, performed the second census of men able to serve in the army. It was from this campsite that 12,000 soldiers were sent out to carry out vengeance on the nearby Midianite settlements for the way the Midianites had plotted against the Israelites. It was to this campsite that the 12,000 soldiers returned victoriously with the spoils of war, having won the battle and having killed the five major chieftains of the Midianites. It was at this campsite that the Gadites and Reubenites requested to remain on this side of the Jordan River rather than receiving an inheritance on the other side in the promised land along with the other tribes. Moses agreed to their request after they promised to send their fighting men into the promised land with all the other soldiers in order to take the land for Israel.
Another thing happened at this campsite which will comprise the remainder of our study time today. "On the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho the Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places.'" (Numbers 33:50-52) The takeover of the promised land is intended to be both a military victory and a spiritual victory. The pagan residents of the land, along with their pagan idols and their pagan altars, are to be removed. If these idolatrous people are not driven out, the danger exists that the Israelites will mix and mingle with them in business, in society, and in marriage. If the idols and altars aren't torn down, the danger exists that the Israelites will be tempted by them and lured away from the Lord.
What would be even worse than turning cold toward God would be to mix heathen idolatry with the worship of the Lord so that the Israelites keep just enough of their true religion to feel comfortable but not enough of it to have any power or victory spiritually. This is lukewarm religion and the Lord hates lukewarm religion so much that He will say in Revelation 3:16 that it makes Him want to vomit. A person who is on fire for the Lord is not in danger of falling away from Him. And there is actually more hope for a cold-hearted person than for a lukewarm person because the cold-hearted person knows he is cold, knows he is empty, and knows he has no spiritual anchor in his life and no relationship with the Lord. A cold-hearted person can be heated up fairly quickly when the emptiness in his heart reaches the point where he is compelled to seek the Lord or when his circumstances drive him to his knees to seek help from the Lord. A lukewarm person thinks he is okay already, which is why this is the most dangerous temperature to be.
Allowing idols to false gods to stand in the land and allowing heathen altars to remain where sacrifices have been made to demons would cause the people to lose their horror of false religion. They would become used to seeing these objects dotting the landscape. In time they might start adding in dabs of heathen doctrine to their own religious doctrine. Some would eventually lose their original religion altogether while others would mix and mingle so many things together that they lost the spirit and the heart of the worship of the one true God. It's important to sweep the house clean, so to speak, when they take over the promised land. It will remove a great deal of temptation from their lives to have these heathen gods out of sight and out of mind.
The Israelites are to fully take over and inhabit the land---the land the Lord promised Abraham long ago that He would give to his descendants. "Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess." (Numbers 33:53) We often don't take full advantage of everything the Lord has given us to possess. We could have so much more victory, comfort, and peace in our lives if we'd only take Him at His word. He has made us "very great and precious promises" (2 Peter 1:4) in His holy word but in a lot of ways we fail to avail ourselves of them fully. If we'd just believe in them and take hold of them then we could walk through this life with far greater confidence and assurance.
"Distribute the land by lot, according to your clans. To a larger group give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group a smaller one. Whatever falls to them by lot will be theirs. Distribute it according to your ancestral tribes." (Numbers 33:54) The primary purpose for the census taken along the Jordan River was to determine how many men were available for military service, but the secondary purpose was for the parceling out of territory in the promised land.
The Lord concludes His instructions with a warning. "But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your side. They will give you trouble in the land where you plan to live. And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them." (Numbers 33:55-56) Long ago the inhabitants of Canaan turned away from the Lord and never turned back. The Lord has given them many years and many opportunities to repent and turn back but they have repeatedly rejected Him. Now He is about to uproot them from the land and plant Israel in their place. But if Israel makes the same mistakes the heathen tribes of Canaan made, the fate of Israel will be the same. Israel too will be uprooted by the hand of God.
As we move through the Old Testament we'll learn that the Israelites did not fully follow the Lord's instructions from Numbers 33. They won't completely drive all the heathen tribes out and we'll find a large segment of the population either falling fully into idolatry or mixing idolatry with their worship of the Lord. As a result, the Lord will allow the ten northern tribes to be conquered by Assyria and the two southern tribes to be conquered by Babylon. He will not make an end of His people Israel but He will discipline them. The Lord is able to also discipline you and me if we mix the world with the church and become lukewarm believers. We must be careful to make sure we are using the Bible alone as our guidebook to our relationship with the Lord. If any doctrine does not adhere exactly to what the word of the Lord says, we must reject it. If anyone's preaching or teaching contradicts the word of God, we must stop listening to it. If anyone's worship song lyrics contradict the word of God, we must turn the music off. Everything we here or see about the Lord must be held up to the light of Scripture and if the two teachings are not in agreement then we must hold to the Scriptures and cast aside the false doctrine. The best way to recognize false doctrine immediately is to regularly immerse ourselves in the word of God. This is how the Lord Jesus fought the devil in the wilderness, for He counteracted every word of Satan with the word of God, thereby proving the words of Satan to be lies. We recognize lies by knowing the truth and in 2021 the best thing we can do for our spiritual health is to be in the word of God every day so that, when temptation comes or when false doctrine falls on our ears, we can reject it by quoting Scripture in the manner and example of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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