Jason Hensley - The Gospel of Peace - Class 5 - Making Peace and Unity

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   This is the 2023 Manitoulin Family Bible Camp. Our speaker for this session is Brother Jason Hensley from the Simi Hills, California Ecclesia. His theme this week is the Gospel of Peace. This is his 5th and final class in the series and the subject for this class is Making Peace for the Jason. Thanks for the Brian.

2. 0:26

   I thought I’d stand here this time. Just kidding. I can’t actually do that. All right, all right, here we go. So we’re on class five, last one together, making peace and unity. We surprisingly have three sections where we will be looking at the destruction of the Canaanites first. This is one of those ones that really tends to bother people because I outlined yesterday that one of the things that you were really being taught from the law was peace. The Law of Moses was supposed to be teaching peace, and yet how do you deal then with the destruction of the Canaanite? So we’ll look at that.

3. 1:10

   One of the other things that people wonder then is what is the meaning of the Phineas story, right? How how does this all fit? Particularly it’s interesting because his story is characterized by peace. So how’s that all fit? So look at that as well and then possibly some other challenges depending on on time that we have. And then we’re going to wrap it up with principle and application.

4. 1:34

   So we’ll see how all of this comes together. Our main message is that principles bring unity. Now let’s just go back and remember our previous core messages. I practice so I remember #3 this time. OK, our core message for number one was peace matters. Very good. OK, day two, court message. All shades of peace are interconnected. Very good.

5. 2:07

   Day three, peace is universal. Very good. All right. And yesterday’s day four, the Law of Moses. Taught peace very good. OK. I hope all the rest of you who aren’t saying anything or thinking it OK. Good. So the Law of Moses taught peace. So that’s what we’ve seen. And hopefully that really shows the centrality of peace to Scripture’s narrative, to what it’s bringing out.

6. 2:36

   What we’re going to see today, you will notice that the core message doesn’t actually mention peace at all. And that’s because we’ve seen now the foundation for peace. And what we’re going to see is that we can build on that. We have our foundation for peace. And now once we understand peace, we can then understand where unity comes from. Unity is built on principles.

7. 3:03

   And I think that’s a contrast, by the way, we’re going to talk about in our third section together where I talk about principles and applications. Those are different. I think a lot of times we treat them as though they’re the same principles and applications. And we’ll talk about what’s the difference between the two. But I want to suggest to you that unity comes from agreement on principles.

8. 3:21

   Not necessarily. Agreement on applications our why question why was Phineas commended for his violence right. I told you that this was that I you know had my list of gory stories right well Phineas was definitely near the top. It was one of my favorites like that sorry. That was how I you know that was how I rolled It was my little boy Ness, I guess, but I I just thought the whole idea of like, you know he was strong enough to through two people at once. I was like.

9. 3:50

   Wow. That guy was a man. So, you know, anyway, there you go. But I think the question is in relation to what we’re looking at here. What what is it that we see going on? There’s something really interesting about this narrative because what he does is tremendously violent. And yet God comes along and says, I’m giving you my covenant of peace.

10. 4:09

    Huh? All right, so first let’s talk about the destruction of the Canaanites. I mentioned yesterday that a university people ask me about this frequently. How can you? This is this. Is an apologetics kind of thing. They say, how can you as a genocide scholar, how can you support the Bible when the Bible clearly supports genocide, right? So they ask me this, Well, it’s interesting because I want to suggest to you, I think that’s actually the wrong approach. Obviously it’s the wrong approach and I think it’s the wrong box.

11. 4:46

    I think as soon as we start to think about genocide. And the Canaanites, we’re kind of missing the point of what’s going on. Now, let me just historically back up what I’m saying. Anybody want to give me a suggestion or give me a thought as to when genocide is given a definition? Anyone know?

12. 5:09

    Yeah, Steve, I was hoping you’d know. Yep, late 40s. Oh, very good. Which you can kind of figure that out when you place it on your historical timeline, right? It happens just after the Holocaust. So the the man who comes up with it, his name is Raphael Lemkin. If you’re interested, you can look up his story. It’s kind of interesting.

13. 5:28

    Raphael Lemkin, he grows up in Poland. He is Jewish. He is able to get a teaching position in the United States as a professor. So he flees. Poland in the 1930s. The rest of his family does not, so they are annihilated. Throughout the 1930s, he is very driven to try and come up with how do I describe what it is that’s taking place?

14. 5:55

    He studied the Armenian genocide of the early 1900s. And what really bothered him about it, This is his famous quote. He said, why is the murder of 1 considered the same as the murder of a million, Right? He says. Our our language simply says if you murder one person, it’s the same as murdering a million because you’re just a murderer, right?

15. 6:18

    And he said that’s not right. He wanted to come up with another term. So he goes through all kinds of terms. It happens. You know, it’s really, well, it’s really good that he was a professor of linguistics. So he’s able to, to bring together these different ideas. So he brings together Genos and C Day, right? And he creates the word genocide. That’s 1947.

16. 6:40

    So 1947. It’s at meeting of the UN. He lobbies the UN and eventually the UN accepts this definition of genocide and they create a Commission, interestingly enough, but I don’t need to go into all this. OK, I’ll just tell you the last point. Interestingly enough, the United States didn’t accept the definition until the 1990s. Is that weird?

17. 7:02

    OK, so I want to just give you that information. I felt like that was important because it helps us to understand that when the definition, but we need to know where words come from because when they get used, we need to understand why they don’t. Work. For certain things. In other words, genocide is a word that was created in the 1940s and was not made for this.

18. 7:26

    This is completely different if you walk through all. The major genocides of the last century, which there were a lot, if you walk through all of them, you will notice that they do not share characteristics with what happens in the Bible. It’s not the same. So is it mass death? Yes, it is. But I would put to you that it’s probably better. Like if you really want to, you know, you could make a case that this is genocidal, but I think it’s better and it’s more helpful to instead recognize how this is different because it’s incredibly different.

19. 7:58

    There’s a, there’s a framework. Called the 10 stages of genocide. I don’t know if anybody’s ever heard of it, but if you take those 10 stages and you compare them to what scripture says. You will notice that these only match about half. So the structure of the Canaanites only match about half and it just it doesn’t fit.

20. 8:16

    So I want to just say that right off the bat. Now let’s just talk a little bit about what God does say. So let’s look. Exodus 23 that sounded weird. Let’s just talk a little bit about what God does say. Let’s talk a lot about what God says. Sorry, that’s I didn’t mean to sound that way at all.

21. 8:32

    So Exodus 23, let’s look at at what he says in relation to getting rid of the Canaanites. So Exodus 23 verses 31 to 33 says I will set your border from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, from the wilderness to the Aphrates. For I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand.

22. 8:48

    You should drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you. You’ll notice there’s nothing there really about killing. And so this is the first time that God explains specifically after giving the 10 commandments, when he explains this is what you’re going to have to do. And he essentially says you drive them out, right? Well, he gets a little more detailed when we get into Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 7 verses one and two. This says when the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, parasites, Hiveites, and Jebusites, 7 nations larger and stronger than you. When the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. So in Exodus it was drive them out. Deuteronomy we now get the explicit directions which are completely get rid of them, make no treaty with them, show them no mercy.

23. 9:47

    Our term is Karem. In the Hebrew it’s the same term. That’s used to describe the city of Jericho. So all the stuff that’s in Jericho, a lot of times you’ll see that translated as devoted to God. So it was, it was devoted in the sense that it wasn’t for anybody else, right? That’s that’s why you’ll notice that it’s translated here as destroy. It wasn’t like they were going to take them as slaves anything like that.

24. 10:12

    It was that was the end. Make no treaty with them. Show them no mercy. So you can see this, and again, a lot of people will read this and they’ll jump to aha, see genocide. Now, again, I think it’s really important for us to understand the nuance, and sometimes we miss nuance just because we get so used to reading the biblical record. It’s good that we read it a lot.

25. 10:34

    It’s good that we’re familiar with it, but familiarity sometimes makes us a little bit sloppy. So let’s take a look and try and picture what it would have been like to be an Israelite, because I think first of all, the Israelites should have and would have wrestled with this. How do you work this out? Exodus 20, verse 13, You shall not murder. Have you ever thought about that? We know it’s one of the 10 commandments. And by the way, I would have translated that as you shall not kill.

26. 11:10

    Now you shall not murder. There’s a little, there’s a whole rabbinic debate about this. I think it’s silly. It should be. You shall not kill. Some people try to get around it and say, oh, well, it just meant, you know, you shouldn’t kill people on purpose, right? I’m pretty sure God didn’t want you to kill people regardless of if it was on purpose.

27. 11:29

    So you shall not murder, or you shall not kill. In addition, look at Leviticus 19 verses 33 to 34. It says when a stranger, when a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you. You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

28. 11:48

    I am the Lord your God. Now this is important because we’re again, again, we’re used to this idea that you will love your neighbor as yourself, right? Do you notice what this says? You will love your stranger as yourself. So that’s another piece here. So Can you imagine being an Israelite, hearing the 10 commandments, thinking, OK, God doesn’t want us to kill.

29. 12:11

    You have this overall framework of peace that we established yesterday. And then in Leviticus 19 verses 33 to 34, you read that those strangers who have decided to follow Israel, right? The Gentiles, that you’re supposed to love them as you love yourself. So you have this framework. And then God says, by the way, there are seven nations that I want you to totally obliterate and have absolutely no mercy on them.

30. 12:43

    You’d be thinking, well, how’s that work? How does this go together? Now, I don’t think this was a contradiction. I think this was multiple principles overlapping. That’s what I was trying to establish yesterday, right? If we take this as rules, then yes, you get a contradiction. This is not rules. Instead, God was teaching principles, and the principles overlay each other. Where one principle is taken is given precedence over another. We can talk about that more later. I went on for a long time about it with the teens and I realized I didn’t have time to do that.

31. 13:24

    So we can, we can talk about it at the end if you want. OK. Now I think God actually set up the Israelites to really understand what he was doing with these principles so that when they were given those verses to destroy the nations, and then when they were given the verses to not murder and to love their stranger as themselves, that they would have had a framework for really for actually understanding this. And that’s here.

32. 13:49

    Take a look at these verses and see if you notice what’s in common with them. So these are God’s work initially during the first few plagues with Egypt. This is what He says in Exodus 7, verse five. It says, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it. Exodus 7, verse 17.

33. 14:13

    Again, look for what’s in common here. This is what the Lord says. By this you will know that I am the Lord with the staff that is in my hand. I will strike the water of the Nile and it will be changed in the blood. Exodus 8, verse 10. Tomorrow, Pharaoh said. Moses replied.

34. 14:31

    It will be as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God do. You notice what’s in common with all these. You will know that I am Yahweh, and I think we’re familiar with that, right? They show up over and over in the plagues that God says.

35. 14:49

    These plagues will teach Israel that I’m Yahweh, right? It’s going to do both. They’ll teach Israel that I’m Yahweh and they will teach Egypt that I am Yahweh, that I am he who will be, you know, they have all these different gods that for for various things and I will show I am the one.

36. 15:06

    I am the one that will be I am the one that was I am the one that is. So he’s showing he is the one. Now I think it’s really helpful when we just again, think about it and play it through. Let me ask you this. We’re talking about massacre of people, so.

37. 15:29

    Which plague was it where people died? It’s the last one, right? Have you ever thought about that? I think that’s fascinating. God saves the massacre till the final plague, he says. During each plague, look, I’m giving you an opportunity to know who I am, to know that I am the real God. And so when they don’t learn it in plug one, they’re supposed to learn it in plug 2. When they don’t learn it in two, they’re supposed to learn it in three, etcetera.

38. 16:00

    And finally, all the way at the end, God says, look, you leave me no choice. If you don’t know that I’m Yahweh now, then there’s going to. Be stronger consequences and that is when the massacre happens. I think that’s really important as we try and understand the way that God is working with Egypt here. And I’m going to suggest you to the Canaanite nations. Now let’s think about this a little bit further. God in fact made a way so that the Egyptians did not have to take part in that massacre, right? Exodus 12 verses 37 to 38 says the Israelites journey from Ramses to Sukkot.

39. 16:44

    There are about 600,000 men on foot beside women and children. Many other people went up with them. And sometimes we miss this just because it’s so small. KJV says a mixed multitude. And we just kind of read over that. Oh, there was, you know, a group of people. Well, they weren’t Israelites, right? Because we were just told that the Israelites went. So who are these people that went up with them? They would have had to have been Egyptians, right? So these were Egyptians who ally themselves to the Israelites. Now what that would have meant, because this is the Passover story, Exodus 12, what that would have meant is that they were there in the camp of Israel. Now just think about how God arranged this because this is this is so striking and yet it’s so subtle. God said, if you do not want your first born to die, what did you need to do?

40. 17:39

    Blood on the door frame, right? What kind of blood? A lamb. Now did you ever think about that? If you were an Egyptian, how would you get a lamb? You had to go to the Hebrews. Why? Because they were shepherds, right? You remember that being mentioned, that they’re shepherds, therefore they have to live all the way in Goshen. Now, on top of that, just just look at how God like ensured this.

41. 18:06

    This is awesome. So not only did you have to go to the Hebrews just because they’re shepherds, right? But you also had to go to the Hebrews because just in case there happened to be, you know, the one Egyptian guy who decided to become a shepherd, he had no sheep. Why? Because they all died in the plague. Not only that, if you wanted hyssop, guess where you had to go?

42. 18:29

    You had to go to the camp of Israel because all the trees were destroyed in Egypt. So God sets this up and he says, look, I’m telling you, here’s the way that this is all going to work. And Moses is very explicit. He explains these are the things that are going to happen.

43. 18:44

    So God says if you don’t want your first born to die, you have to go to the camp of Israel. You have to get a lamb from them, you have to get hyssop from them. In other words, you have to join Israel, you have to join their camp. And a number of people realize that and they do it. But I think it’s crucial for us to notice that God provided a way to be saved.

44. 19:08

    From the massacre, yes, there was a massacre, but it is not genocide the way that people understand genocide. If you look at every single genocide of the 20th century, you will find that there was no escape. If you were targeted, that was it, right? You couldn’t. If you were Jewish, you couldn’t say, oh, well, I got baptized as a Christian, too bad it didn’t matter, right? You had Jewish blood.

45. 19:36

    But here God provides a way out. And I think that’s why it’s so helpful. For us to reframe this to step back and say, well, wait a minute, let’s not actually use that term because that’s not really what’s going on here. Instead, what God is doing is he’s saying I’m setting before you life and death. Which do you choose?

46. 19:57

    And in fact, that’s what God has always done, right? That’s what God does with us. It’s the same thing. It’s just, you know, death for us comes a little later sometimes. But this is the choice that God puts out, life, death. This is not about massacres. And so when we come to the Canaanites.

47. 20:15

    It’s the same thing. So let’s just build this out and see that that’s what God is doing. Our God is a God of peace. He is not one who stands up and says, haha, destroy the Canaanites or something like that. That’s not what was going on. In fact, when you take a look at Deuteronomy 20 verses 10 to 15, look at the contrast. It says when you March up to attack a city, make its people and offer a peace.

48. 20:37

    Huh. Well, that’s interesting. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it in your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.

49. 20:54

    As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourself. You may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities. Notice this. This is important that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. Now, sometimes I think we miss this. You may have heard people talking before about the destruction of the Canaanites, and I think often at least I have done this.

50. 21:19

    Maybe you haven’t. Often I will jump to spiritualizing the story and I will say, look, this is about our walk and the truth. The Canaanites represent the world. Now I think that’s a fine interpretation, OK? I’m not saying that that’s bad or anything like that, but I think sometimes. When we get a little overly zealous to jump to the spiritual application, we miss what’s actually going on because what we’re being told here is that God made a differentiation.

51. 21:47

    God made a differentiation here between those seven Canaanite nations that he said needed to be destroyed. And those people, quote that are at a distance from you, right? It was not like God said to to Israel, go destroy the whole world. That wasn’t the point. He said I want you to go destroy.

52. 22:05

    A very specific subset of nations. And it wasn’t even just the people that were in the territory. They were going right Because this is all about when you’re in your territory, this is what you’re going to do. It was a specific set of seven nations. In fact, he explains that again, if you keep reading in Deuteronomy 20 verses 16 to 18, he says, However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes completely destroy them.

53. 22:29

    The Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, parasites, Hivites, Jebusites. Again, you will notice that it says in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance that is in a particular portion of this, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable.

54. 22:44

    Things they do in worshipping their gods, you will sin against the Lord your God. So what you get is God makes a distinction. There are seven nations. You are to destroy the other nations. Come to them, ask them if they’ll make peace with you. If they won’t, then you fight them.

55. 23:03

    That should be an indication to us that there’s more going on here. This is not just an opportunity to say, oh, look, God commits mass murder, you know, and right off the Bible, as some people like to do. That’s not what’s happening. There’s more going on. So we need to try and understand then what is it about these specific nations? What is it about the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, parasites, Havites, and Jebusites?

56. 23:25

    Why does God say I’m going to destroy those nations? I will suggest to you he gives a little hint and he does it in the promises to Abraham, Genesis 15. This is our story. In which Abraham is put into a deep sleep. You remember that he cuts these animals in half. He goes into a deep sleep, then a a smoking fire and burning furnace.

57. 23:51

    They travel through through the the the pieces of the animal and then God gives a prophecy to Abraham or Abram at the time. This is what He says. As we read this, just look for our indication as to what God had against those seven nations. Genesis 15 verses 13 to 16. It says.

58. 24:13

    Then the Lord said to him, Know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation. They serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age in the 4th generation.

59. 24:34

    Your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. Do you notice the hint that God gives here? He says, in effect, he had promised Abraham the land, right? Abraham came and he was going to inherit that land. But God says to Abraham, it’s not actually time yet. It’s not time for you to inherit the land because God indicates he’s actually working with the Amorites. He says, I’m not going to destroy all the Amorites yet because they’re not bad enough.

60. 25:09

    Have you ever noticed that? Like that’s, that’s fascinating to see. It’s just a little sentence here in which God is saying, I’ve been working with the Amorites and I don’t want you to destroy them. So there must be some kind of change that takes place here. And then a couple, 100 years later and the time when God says you do need to destroy them and the difference is that at that time they weren’t sinful enough. And by the time of the Exodus, they are. So what I would suggest to you, this is telling us is that God gives a little indication that he’s actually working with the MRI nation.

61. 25:50

    Now that shouldn’t be that surprising because one of the other nations that he mentions here is the Jebusites, right? Well, we know that he was also working with the Jebusites. How do we know that? Because of Jerusalem, right? Jerusalem’s other name is Jebus. Guess who lived in Jebus? Jebusites, right? So the king of Jebus was Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God.

62. 26:28

    So you can put this together and you can see that God says you’re not going to take over the Amorites because I’m still working with them. They apparently you know that was. Just the last. Chapter Genesis 14 where we learned about Melchizedek, they apparently weren’t going to take over Jebus either because Melchizedek was there teaching the truth to people.

63. 26:46

    And So what you see is God says there’s these specific nations. And I would suggest to you, the reason that God says we’re going to destroy these seven is because he says I’ve been working with them and now I’ve reached the end. I’ve worked with the nations. People have come to me. They’ve come to know me. And now there’s very few people left who are going to do that. So that’s why in Leviticus chapter 20, when God explains to the people what it’s going to be like when they get into the land, look at what He says about the nations. Leviticus 20 verses 22 to 23.

64. 27:27

    He says, keep all my decrees and laws and follow them so that the land where I’m bringing you to live may not vomit you out. You must not live according to the customs of the nations. I’m going to drive out before you because they did all these things. I abhorred them. Now this is astonishing because God says it’s not that Israel has standards. They do.

65. 27:50

    He gives them to them. But that’s not what He’s referring to here. He says, in fact, the land has standards. Do you notice that, right? He says, I’ve given you these laws and you’re supposed to follow them. But guess what? Other people had laws too, and they were supposed to follow those and they didn’t. So I’m kicking them out.

66. 28:12

    And in fact, Israel, you might feel really special. And yes, they are the chosen people of God, right? I’m not minimizing that. But he says if you live like those nations, you’re going to be out too. And that’s what happens. So what we see going on is that God is so much bigger than I think we often realize, right?

67. 28:35

    Scripture is the story. Of God working with Israel, and that’s wonderful, but every once in a while we get hints of the fact that God was working in other places. Right. Where does? Where does Jethro? Come from, you know, have you ever wondered that? How do you get this priest who gives Moses like the spiritual advice and he’s praying to Yahweh, right? All these, where does he come from? But he comes from the fact that God was working with various other nations.

68. 29:04

    And so when we recognize that, I think suddenly it can make sense that just as God wanted to allow those in Egypt to follow him. And so he keeps saying, you will know that I am Yahweh, you will know that I’m Yahweh. He’s doing the same thing in the background with the Amorites, with the Jebusites.

69. 29:22

    And so that’s why, as we get to the story of the destruction of the Canaanites, you actually have the Israelites breaking the rule because it’s not a rule, right? It’s a principle. So that when they come to Jericho, Rahab says, can I join you? Right. I would like to become an Israelite. And the Israelites don’t say, no, sorry, we’re supposed to kill all the Canaanites, right?

70. 29:45

    They say, yeah, you can, because that’s the whole point. God wanted the Canaanites to convert, and when they get to the point of not converting, he says we’ll go wipe them all out. But then when there’s still remnants who want to, God says, yeah, do it. And so that’s why we see that of these seven nations they were supposed to destroy.

71. 30:07

    That’s why we see righteous people who came around. You have Ahimelech in first Samuel 26, verse six, you have Uriah the Hittite. Second Samuel 2339, you have Rahab. You have Ornin the Jebusite. First Chronicles 2118 and 23. So you have all of these people who convert to follow the way of truth from these nations, despite the fact that the Israelites were told to destroy them. And that is because God’s overall purpose with the Canaanites was to bring them to His glory. And so those who would respond could. That then also explains Israel’s job. Israel was called the Kingdom of priests, right? What was the job of the priest they were to teach? That didn’t mean that every person in the land was supposed to be a priest, right?

72. 31:07

    They aren’t. They weren’t all going to be doing the offerings. So God says this specifically because each individual Israelite was to see themselves as part of this Kingdom that would be a priest to the nations. And so God explains this, that as they’re going around and as they’re destroying, this is how they were supposed to see themselves.

73. 31:28

    He says, see Deuteronomy 4-5 to seven. I have taught you decrees and laws that the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations who will hear about all these decrees and say surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. Now again, by the way, people misunderstand what’s going on here.

74. 31:52

    You might hear I don’t. Maybe, maybe you don’t hear people say this, but I hear, I hear them say it. They’ll say, oh, look, you know, you can compare the Code of Habarami Hammurabi, the Code of Hammurabi to the Law of Moses, and you can say, oh, look, see, Moses got a whole bunch of his laws from the Code of Hammurabi. No, that’s not what’s going on.

75. 32:10

    Instead, it’s what we saw yesterday. God was trying to show you have these laws and you’re supposed to understand the principle beneath them. And that when you’re living by those principles, when you say, oh look, you broke my arm, I forgive you that the nations will say what? Who does that, right? That was the point. It wasn’t like Moses was copying the laws. He was taking those laws and showing here’s the better way. This is what these things mean.

76. 32:43

    What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them, the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to Him?

77. 32:55

    OK, so to wrap that up, our first section. Which took 35 minutes. Well, we can see, I hope that. Peace is the foundation, right God? God was not saying go in and destroy the Canaanites because I want to just destroy people. The whole initial goal was conversion. God was working with the people for centuries to bring about a time of.

78. 33:23

    Peace. And yet because they resisted that, because they chose death rather than life. God says, well then I can’t. Bring peace with you here.

79. 33:36

    OK, let’s talk about Phineas. So how do we work with this? How does how does this all fit together? Right? You have a story that’s rather violent, and yet it’s about peace. So here’s the story. Numbers 25, six to nine. Then an Israelite man brought into the camp of Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel, while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phineas son of Eliezer, son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand, and followed the Israelite into the tent.

80. 34:07

    He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped. But those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. First of all, you can notice by the way, that Phineas saved lives, right? We can see that for sure because he stops the plague. So Phineas’s action here is actually an action of life, right?

81. 34:28

    He. Saves life. So that’s an important thing to notice and that appears to be the way that God interprets it as well. So if you look at the next few verses, it says the Lord said to Moses, Phineas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites since he was a zealous for my honor among them as I am.

82. 34:47

    I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. So you get a covenant of peace that comes out of this. And all the way at the end of the Old Testament in Malachi, you have a commentary on this section, and Malachi references again that same covenant of peace, although he calls it a covenant of. Life and peace.

83. 35:09

    So you have it in two places that Phineas’s action here was actually peaceful. Why? Well, I think the key. Is for us to follow this process. We want to examine our context. When we’ve done that, we can determine the principle and then we can figure out the application. So let me just talk about what this means.

84. 35:35

    Context is things like what was the historical setting? So what was the historical context at the time? That would be your historical context, obviously. What was the? Literary context, right? That would be like reading numbers 25 or, you know, the whole book of numbers. What was the literary context? Then what was the Biblical? Context.

85. 35:55

    That’s like, where does Phineas show up in other places in Scripture, right? Or where else is this talked about once you build up those 3 Context. Historical, literary, biblical. Then you have all the facts and you can try and figure out, OK, what’s the principle? So the principle is a timeless truth. So what is the timeless truth that comes out of this story?

86. 36:16

    When you have that, then you can develop the application. Every one of us has a different context that we live in, right? Your struggles are different than mine. So because of that, when I have a principle, my application of the principle will be different than yours is. It will look different. You know, sometimes just merely because we’re doing different things, right, mine might be disciplining a student at school or something like that, and yours, I don’t know, you know, whatever, whatever it might be, disciplining an employee or something.

87. 36:44

    So we take the context, we build the principle on that, and then we develop our application. Well, I think when we look, by the way, at the story, the principal kind of jumps out to us. Do you notice what God commended Phineas for says? Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. So the thing that specifically commended is Phineas’s zeal. I think that’s really, really crucial for us to notice. Here’s why sometimes we don’t go through this process and we start to make mistakes.

88. 37:19

    Because of that, let me give you some examples. I remember being at a youth weekend. Some of you also might remember this because some of you were there. I remember being at a youth weekend in which the topic was Phineas right, and it was lunchtime. My brother got up to pray for lunch and he prayed. That we would all be Phineas’s to each other. And I remember like during the prayer, like I’m not trying to make fun of somebody’s prayer, but I remember during the prayer, like I was kind of like, you know, I really wanted to open my eyes and see if anybody.

89. 37:52

    Else was like. Oh, that sounds scary. You know, like, like because we have to try and figure out what was the principle, because if we jump over the principal step, we get, well, we’re going to be a Phineas. And what did Phineas do? Well, he stabbed two people with a javelin because of his zeal. So like, is that what we’re supposed to do? You know, was that is that the lesson? And you know, you look at that and you’re like, well, obviously no, right.

90. 38:16

    The the lesson is not go stab people. But it’s only that because we figured out what the principle is. And the principle is zeal. It wasn’t about the fact that Phineas stabbed people, right? That that happened, yes. But what God commends him for is God doesn’t say, wow, good stabbing. Like God says, you were zealous and that was good, right?

91. 38:42

    That’s what God cares about. He cared about the zeal. So when we have that principle, we can then figure out the application from that. That’s why we don’t do things like this. It says now, my son, the Lord be with you and may you have success and build the House of the Lord your God as he said you would.

92. 39:02

    Now we automatically again, I don’t think we we like enunciate it like this, but we automatically say, oh, right, Solomon was supposed to go build the House of God. Well, why aren’t we? And that’s because of this process, right. We understand there’s a context here, and this is specific to Solomon’s context. He was supposed to build the house.

93. 39:22

    So there’s a principle that comes out and we can take that principle and apply. It’s not like we just do what Solomon did. But sometimes we get a little fuzzy on this, right? Have you ever tried to quote layout the fleece, right? Like Gideon? You know, sometimes we do that thing and and we say, oh, see, you know, like I’m going to flip heads or tails and God make it be heads if I’m supposed to do this or something like that.

94. 39:46

    And we miss the whole point. Like the point was not that God is going to answer your prayer and tell you what to do. That was not that was not what was going on there. The point was that God was saying to Gideon, I recognize I don’t want to put words in God’s mouth.

95. 40:00

    He was telling Gideon that Gideon could trust him because Gideon was scared. And the principle that comes out of this is that God is willing to work with our fear. It’s not telling us. You know, ask for signs like that. People don’t do that in Scripture. Because, by the way, Gideon wasn’t actually asking for a sign on what he was supposed to do. I don’t know if you noticed that. So we also just misread that passage. Gideon was asking for a sign that God would be with him, he says, because he was scared.

96. 40:35

    But sometimes we get a little bit, you know, a little wishy washy with this whole context principle application. And when we work through it, we can then come to these stories with clarity. It’s the same reason that, you know, we don’t pray to the Holy Spirit and say that like, you know, people should fall down dead when they lie, right?

97. 40:55

    Because that was a specific context. That’s not the lesson that you’re supposed to learn. You’re not supposed to learn that the Holy Spirit will kill you if you lie. There are principles instead. So what’s our principle here? Well, the principle is that God loves zeal for Him. Now we also need to understand Phineas’s context because I think that makes a big difference. Take a look at numbers 25 versus one to five and see if you can understand why Phineas did what he did. Numbers 25 versus one to five.

98. 41:26

    It says while Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Bale of Peor. The Lord’s anger burned against them. The Lord said to Moses, take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel. So Moses said to Israel’s judges, Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the veil of pure.

99. 41:56

    Why did Phineas go and kill those two people? Because God said to, right? It was not like, you know, really complicated, like he was standing there. Moses says, you guys need to go kill the leaders who are doing this. Phineas sees a leader who’s doing it and Phineas is like, well, there you go.

100. 42:14

     That’s what I’m supposed to do. There was no ambiguity in this situation. He had a direct command from God kill these people. So he does notice. That’s not what he does in other situations, right? In Joshua 22, he goes and he talks to them.

101. 42:35

     In Judges chapter 20, he prays for direction. And then in addition to that, he also has the people inquire, right? He, he takes multiple steps and he doesn’t kill people. So I think it’s one of those things that’s really interesting. Like he kind of gets known for numbers 25, right? And that’s that’s fine. But it’s interesting that that’s the only time he does something like that.

102. 43:09

     So what is the principle? I think the principle that comes out of this is that God loves zeal for him, and zeal comes from knowing who God really is, right? So this is what I think we’re supposed to take from this story. This is not a story I would suggest that goes against peace. It is not a story that’s necessarily condoning violence. It’s a story.

103. 43:33

     That instead shows that here’s somebody who was told to do something that would have been incredibly hard. I’m sure that stabbing two people is not fun. You know? Phineas wasn’t like. Yes, here comes my opportunity. Like he did it because that’s what God said to do. And God says, I love that zeal and he commends the zeal that Phineas had.

104. 43:57

     So I think that’s a a crucial thing for us to look at this story as God characterizes it. Is primarily a story of peace. It’s a story of peace because of Phineas’s zeal that he listens.

105. 44:12

     So those are just a few things. That that we can take a look at. I’m going to skip all these. I apparently got highly zealous and, you know, made a lot of slides. So there we go. OK, in our last 15 minutes together. So what we’ve seen, just just to kind of recap this. Is we’ve, we’ve been looking at some of the things in the Old Testament that give people reason to say, oh, the Old Testament is violent.

106. 44:39

     It’s not about peace. This is one of the reasons that people still get this idea that there’s a different God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament. But hopefully by putting this together, we can see that no, in fact, it’s the same God. It’s the same God that has always felt like mercy triumphs over judgment.

107. 44:58

     This is the same thing from the beginning to the end. So let’s then wrap it up. In our last 15 minutes, we’ve talked about principles and applications as we’ve gone through looking at the Canaanites and at Phineas. And so I want to just show how these principles and applications also. Are relevant to us living in peace and unity. We have to examine our context, we determine the principle, we develop the application.

108. 45:28

     My suggestion to you, and we’re going to see how this I think is supported scripturally. My suggestion to you is that unity is formed on agreement of principles, not agreement of application. Now, if you just think about this, it makes sense. I think on an individual scale,

109. 45:56

     my context is different than yours. Therefore, I’m going to implement the principles differently, so. If you look. At how I’m implementing the principles, what you should do is come and ask me about my principles. To find out, do we actually agree on the principles? And I. Think that’s what we’re going to see throughout Scripture? Take a look, Mark chapter 2 verses 23 to 28. So notice what the Lord Jesus does, says one Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields and as his disciples walked along they began to pick some heads of grain. Pharisee said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?

110. 46:41

     He answered, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need in the days of Abiathar the high priest? He entered the House of God and ate the consecrated bread which is lawful only for priests to eat and he gave some to his companions. Now that’s all application. He brings out a specific application. Why are they actually arguing about what David did? No, because he’s building this to say there’s actually a principle here, and that’s what we’re talking about. So he says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

111. 47:14

     So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. So he puts out, do we have agreement on this principle? And they didn’t. So that’s why there was disunity between the Lord Jesus and the Pharisees. Same kind of thing, Luke 13 verses 14 to 17, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath.

112. 47:35

     The synagogue leader said to the people, there are six days for work, so come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath. Now it wasn’t really about what were you doing on the Sabbath. So that’s why the Lord Jesus turns and says, you hypocrites, doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?

113. 47:52

     Don’t you look, He’s saying, isn’t life prized on the Sabbath? Isn’t that your principle? Then? Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful.

114. 48:14

     Things he was doing. So he again brings it to the principle to ask, did they have agreement on that principle? The main issue wasn’t the wrong application. The wrong application came from the wrong principle, and that’s why each time. He brings it back to the principal. He doesn’t hammer it out over should I heal on the Sabbath? He says, here’s the principle.

115. 48:47

     Do you agree on this? So I think that’s the crucial thing and you will see this all throughout Scripture in disagreements. So just think about Acts chapter 15. You remember the Jerusalem conference. Why did the why was the Jerusalem conference convened circumcision, right? Should the Gentiles be circumcised? So you have Jerusalem conference discussing should the Gentiles be circumcised. Now think about how this goes, because you can see that the people who speak at the Jerusalem conference are talking 1st about application.

116. 49:25

     So you get Peter who stands up and he says here’s what happened when I worked with Cornelius and his family and here was the application, right? They didn’t have to be circumcised. So you get somebody gives that, you have Paul who stands up and he says here’s all the things that have happened with me and the Gentiles.

117. 49:42

     Nobody changes their mind when they hear those things. Did you ever notice that nothing happens? People are like, Oh, yeah, OK, when do people change their minds? At the Jerusalem conference, when James stands up and here’s what he says. He says Tabernacle of David and everybody’s like, Yep, What? I mean, have you ever thought about that?

118. 50:04

     Like, how does that even, how does that even make any sense? Can you imagine somebody getting up in your ecclesia? You’re like having a debate about stuff, and they’re like Tabernacle of David, everyone. And then all of a sudden everybody closes their Bibles. Yep, end of discussion. Like, huh? How does that help anything?

119. 50:21

     It’s because that’s the principle. The Tabernacle of David was all about Gentiles coming to God outside of the law of Moses. It was a tent outside of the Tabernacle where the Gentiles could come and worship God. And so James gets up and he says, let me give you all the principle. It’s the Tabernacle of David.

120. 50:44

     And everybody says that’s it, he’s got it. We agree. It wasn’t about the application, right? They were arguing about the application initially. They needed the principle, and the principle was what brought the unity. It’s the same thing, by the way, when Paul argues with Peter, you remember it in Galatians chapter two. He stands up and he says, what are you doing?

121. 51:05

     How is it that you as a Jew are trying to compel people to keep what we’ve never been able to keep? Right now? That’s the application, he goes on. And he explains the principle. He says because by the works. Of the law shall no flesh be justified. And so he presents that principle to Peter, right? He says, you know, he’s looking at Peter’s actions as though, like, how could you be doing these things? Do you actually believe this, that by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified?

122. 51:41

     Is that, is that true to you? Because if you agree on that, then we can work through the other stuff. But if you don’t agree on that, then we got problems, right? That’s, that’s what we have going on. So this is what we see over and over scripturally with conflict that you have peace, right? That’s the foundation.

123. 51:59

     You have peace. And once you have that peace, then you can say, here are my principles. What do you think? And I would suggest to you that a lot of times we get buried in the applications and we really. Make a mistake. I just want to tell you a story. This is on a personal level for me.

124. 52:18

     There was a brother that I had a really hard time with. I felt like we were doing everything opposite. I was trying to encourage people to be more studious. I felt like, and he was trying to encourage people to be less studious like that. That was kind of how it, how it I perceived it. So what I did is I tried to do all kinds of things to get him off of speaking lists, right?

125. 52:41

     That that was pretty lame. Right, I’ll acknowledge that. So I tried to do all kinds of things like that so that he did not speak anywhere. He invited me to his house, had dinner with me and told me he thought I should transfer ecclesias. Right? Like so you can see how this is not very good.

126. 53:01

     One day we saw each other and he said, can I talk to you privately? I said OK, that’s fine. So he went out and he said, what’s your goal in life? And I said, well, I want to teach people about the Kingdom of God. And he said, did you know that? That’s my goal too. And after that, we’ve had unity between the two of us. He goes about it differently.

127. 53:35

     I still don’t necessarily like the ways he always goes about it, but we agree on principle, not an application. And because we have those shared principles, we can say, you know what, I don’t totally understand what you’re doing, but that’s OK, because I know we’re trying to get to the same spot and I know that we’re trying to get other people to the same spot.

128. 53:59

     And that’s the point. So hopefully in all of this we can recognize. The value of peace. We can see that our God loves peace, and we can see that peace is the initial basis. And once we have peace, we can then build unity on that piece. But unity only comes by shared principles. And sometimes we get lost in trying to make shared applications, but instead it’s all about our principles. That’s what we need to discuss with each other. That’s what we have to share with each other.