In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith focuses on the ordination of Joshua as instructed by the Lord to Moses. He emphasizes that vows are unnecessary and that trusting in one's own flesh and trying to induce God to do something good for oneself is not the right approach. Pastor Chuck explains that God's blessings come to us based on His grace, love, mercy, and unmerited favor, not on our own good works. He also discusses the various offerings and sacrifices that were made to the Lord during feast days, highlighting the significance of Jesus' proclamation during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit, like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today The broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse study Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll continue to focus on the daily offerings to the Lord As we pick up in Numbers, chapter 27, verse 18 And now with today's lesson, here's Pastor Chuck Smith And the Lord said to Moses, Take Joshua, the son of Nun with you, A man in whom is the Spirit, And lay your hand on him. So Joshua was to be ordained by Moses, Set him before Eleazar the priest And before all the congregation, And inaugurate him in their sight. In other words, pass on the mantle of leadership to Joshua In the sight of all the people, so there will be no dispute, really, Concerning leadership, there will be no power struggle Once Moses died. And you shall give some of your authority to him That all of the congregation of the children of Israel May be obedient. And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest Who shall inquire before the Lord for him By the judgment of the Urim At his word they shall go out And at his word they shall come in Both he and all the children of Israel with him And all the congregation. So Moses did as the Lord commanded He took Joshua, set him before Eleazar the priest And before all the congregation, Laid his hands on him, inaugurated him Just as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. And so we see the new generation taking over. Eleazar being the high priest wearing the Urim and the Thummim These are called lights and perfections. By some way, and we don't know how, They used the Urim and the Thummim To inquire of the will of God. And God directed them Through this Urim and the Thummim. But again, just how it worked, We do not know. We do know that they did seek To the priest to get an answer from God Who would inquire of the Lord with the Urim and the Thummim. Now it has been suggested That it was a little pouch Carried by the priest In which there was a white stone and a black stone. And when they would pray and ask God a yes or no question, The priest would reach in the pouch and pull out a stone. If it was the white stone, the answer was yes. If it was the black stone, the answer was no. Possibly, we don't know. It was the way, though, by which they sought And did ascertain the will of God. Shall we move? They would inquire of the Lord. They'd have a yes or no answer. Somehow, through this, God communicated to them His purpose and His will. Now, in chapter 28, We find the offerings That they were to offer to the Lord. And every day of the year, without fail, Every day of the year, They were to offer to the Lord Two male lambs of the first year without blemish Every day as a regular burnt offering. One of the lambs would be offered in the morning And the other lamb in the evening. This was every single day of the year. They were to be offered with these little Fine flour and grain offerings Mixed with some oils, the little bread cakes And the regular burnt offering that was ordained At Mount Sinai for the sweet aroma. The offering made by fire to the Lord. And then there was to be the drink offering Poured out onto the ground for the Lord. Then, on the Sabbath day, They were to offer two more lambs. So, they were offered every day These two lambs. They were always plus whatever other offerings. The Sabbath day, there would be two other lambs Of the first year without blemish. And twice the number of cakes. This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath Beside the regular burnt offering with the drink offering. Then, at the beginning of every month And, of course, they had the lunar months So their months began with the moon. And at the beginning of your months You shall present a burnt offering to the Lord. Two young bulls. One ram. And seven lambs. First of the month. And this, also, with one kid of the goats As a sin offering beside those two lambs That they offered every day. Now, on the fourteenth day, verse sixteen Of the first month The day of Passover And on the fifteenth day of the month Is the feast of unleavened bread To be eaten for seven days. And on the first day You shall have a holy convocation. You're not to do any work. And you're to offer two young bulls One ram Seven lambs in their first year And make sure they are without blemish Emphasized here Because this Passover lamb Is a type of Jesus Christ. And so Peter said, We have been redeemed Not with corruptible things Such as silver and gold From our empty lives But by the precious blood of Jesus Christ Who was slain as a lamb Without spot or without blemish. The Passover lamb had to be without blemish Make sure it's without blemish. Why? Because it's a type of Jesus Christ. Blemish is sin. He was without sin. God made him to be sin For us who knew no sin That we might be made the righteousness of God Through him. And then the grain offering They were also to offer one goat As a sin offering to make atonement. These are beside the burnt offering Of the morning and evening Which were every day. And this was to be done for seven days. These offerings. On the feast of weeks Seven Sabbaths Or seven weeks after the Passover. And then the next day The fiftieth day was the feast of weeks. A holy convocation. You're not to do any work. And during this time You're to present two young bulls One ram, seven lambs In their first year With a grain offering And a kid of the goats To make atonement And make sure They are without blemish. And you shall present them With the drink offerings Your burnt offerings. Then in the seventh month Which would be equivalent to October in our calendar On the first day of the month You shall have a holy convocation You're not to do any work It's the day of the blowing of the trumpets. Now On the first day of the month Then they would have all of these First day of the month offerings That you have in verse eleven. But you shall offer a burnt offering As a sweet aroma to the Lord One young bull One ram Seven lambs That are without blemish A kid of the goats Beside the burnt offerings And the grain offerings Of the new moon So that would be Another two bulls One ram And seven lambs Plus the two lambs That you have daily. So You see how Boy, some of these days These guys were really Beginning to add up Because if you have A holiday come On the new moon day Plus the regular It really begins to add up The number of offerings The animals that were offered On those days. On the tenth day Of the seventh month The day of atonement You shall present A burnt offering to the Lord As a sweet aroma One young bull One ram Seven lambs In their first year Be sure They are without blemish With the grain offerings Also one kid of the goats As a sin offering And the regular burnt offering With the grain offerings. On the fifteenth day Of the seventh month Your feast of tabernacles On the first day Of the fifteenth day Actually The Feast of tabernacles Began on the fifteenth day It went for seven days. So on the first day Of the feast They were to offer Thirteen young bulls Two rams And fourteen lambs In their first year They shall be without blemish. So really Thirteen bulls Two rams Fourteen lambs Pretty good number of offerings Plus the kid of the goats Plus of course the two Lambs that they offered daily. On the second day Twelve young bulls Two rams Fourteen lambs So It stayed the same day after day Except the bulls were reduced Day by day Until you get to the seventh day Of the feast You offered then the seven bulls But then also the Two rams Fourteen lambs And the goat Plus the daily sacrifices. On the eighth day You're to have a sacred assembly You're not to do any work. You shall present the burnt offering With one bull One ram Seven lambs In their first year without blemish The goat for the sin offering But these are all Then verse thirty nine Beside your vowed offerings Your free will offerings As your burnt offerings And your grain offerings And as your drink offerings And as your peace offerings. We do have recorded in the scripture Some of these feast days When as many as twenty five thousand animals Were sacrificed to the Lord. And so It was quite a thing The number of sacrifices. Now This last Feast of the tabernacles On the eighth day Which was a special assembly A holy convocation It was on this Holiday That we read in John seven Where Jesus on the last day The great day of the feast The feast of tabernacles Stood and cried saying If any man thirsts let him come unto me and drink. And so that was in October And it would have been The seven Fifteen plus eight So you'd have October the twenty third That Jesus made that great invitation To the assembled multitudes There on the temple mount. Now we deal with Laws concerning vows. If a man vows a vow to the Lord Or swears an oath To bind himself by some agreement He shall not break his word He shall do according to all that proceeds Out of his mouth. Now A man would take an oath He would take a vow He would swear to do something And often they would swear by different things I swear by the altar of God I swear by the sacrifice on the altar of God I swear by God I swear by the Bible My mother's honor You take a vow Before the Lord Now always it seems to me That a person would take a vow In order to induce God to do something for them Lord if you do this for me This is what I'm going to do for you And you take the vow That Lord you know you come through on this area And this is what I will do And so often the vows were Inducements to God to Work on your behalf Now God said If you make a vow If you take this vow Then keep it Now Jesus In the sermon on the mount said Don't swear at all Don't swear by heaven It's God's throne Don't swear by the earth It's God's footstool You don't have to take a vow You don't have to take an oath Let your yes be a yes And let your no be a no By all that is high and holy I will do it No Jesus said it's not necessary Just say I'll do it Now they really In the New Testament By the time Jesus came along Had really messed up these things on the vows Through the Talmud and the Mishnah They had so interpreted these things That they really made them rather meaningless And in fact Jesus had Rebuked the Pharisees Because they had Replaced The law of God with their traditions And he said you've made the law of God Of no effect by your traditions And he said also That you are now teaching for doctrines The traditions of man Now this is true of the church When they begin to put their dogmas Or their traditions ahead of Scripture They are making the Scripture Of no effect Because their traditions Begin to supersede the Scripture And it is taught for church dogma And in many places Is contrary to the Scriptures But they make the Scriptures of no effect And they teach for doctrine The traditions of man Same thing That happened in the days of Jesus Concerning the Jewish religion Has happened today in Christianity And there are a lot of things That go on within the church That have no scriptural basis at all There are things that are taught for doctrine But they are nothing more than church dogma Which is really the perpetuation Of the traditions of man And that's how church dogma is formed Is if a thing becomes traditional So The taking of vows They really messed this thing up By the time Jesus came along And he sought to correct it The Bible tells us that it's really better Not to take a vow Than to vow and not break it And really vows are totally unnecessary And I do not really believe that a person Should go around taking vows to God Vow to do this, vow to do that Because you see the moment you vow That you're going to do something for God You're really sort of trusting in your flesh And you are usually trying To induce God to do something good for you But whatever God does for you He doesn't do on the basis of your good work But whatever God gives to you Comes to you on the basis of his grace His love, his mercy And his unmerited favor I don't have to merit the blessings of God In fact, I cannot merit the blessings of God Better that I come to God On the basis of his grace and love for me Rather than trying to come to God On the basis of my works That I hope to do for him Now, if a woman Vows a vow to the Lord Binds herself by some agreement While she is living in her father's house That is, my daughter at home If I heard her make some kind of a vow to the Lord As her father I could break that And I could say I disallow that vow And she's not then to be held responsible But If I heard her make the vow And I didn't say anything If I didn't break that vow Then she would be responsible to keep the vow But the father could overrule His daughter's vow Or If my wife would make a vow Then I also had the power to overrule The vow that my wife would make However If I heard her make the vow And I did not overrule it Then it became binding And she had to keep it So the father Or the husband Had the power To disannul the vows that were made By the children The young daughters Or by his wife If you were a widow Or a divorcee And you made a vow Then it becomes a binding vow She will have to keep it So verse 13 Every vow, every binding oath To afflict her soul Her husband may confirm it Or her husband may make it void He has the power to disannul The vow that his wife might make Now in chapter 31 the Lord spoke to Moses saying Take vengeance For the children of Israel on the Midianites Afterward You will be gathered to your people Now Balaam Was from Midian Balaam was called by Balak The king of Moab To curse the people of God We dealt with that last week Now the time has come When God wants vengeance upon The Midianites For the evil that they brought against the children of God For the work of Balaam And so Moses this is your last Task You're to take vengeance For the children of Israel against the Midianites And then you will be gathered to your people So Moses spoke to the people saying Arm Some of yourselves for the war Go out against the Midianites To take the vengeance for the Lord on Midian There is to be a thousand from each tribe So twelve thousand men Are to be sent to war against the Midianites And so they Recruited From the divisions of Israel They took volunteers A thousand from each tribe Twelve thousand armed for war Then Moses sent them to the war One thousand from each tribe And he sent them to the war with Phinehas The son of Eliezer So Phinehas was the one you remember Who stopped the plague By taking the javelin and thrusting through the Man with the Moabitish woman Who had taken into his tent And Phinehas is now Put at the head of the army The priest with the holy articles And the signal trumpets in his hand So the holy articles was probably The Urm and the Thummim By which they sought God How to progress in the battle And the battle trumpets And the blowing of the trumpets To call them into battle And to direct the battle So they warred against the Midianites Just as the Lord commanded Moses And they killed all of the males They killed the kings of Midian The rest of those that were killed Namely the kings Evi, Rechem, Zer, Her and Reba And also notice verse 8 Balaam the son of Beor They also killed with a sword He had prayed Let me die the death of the righteous Let my end be as Jacob's But it was not to be He died the death of the wicked Because of the wicked advice That he gave to the king of Moab He was killed with a sword By the judgment of God Against the Midianites We'll continue with more on The destruction of the Midianites In our next lesson And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy For that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you With the 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Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include The call letters of this station With your correspondence And now on behalf Of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers And financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues His verse by verse study Through the book of Numbers That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today And now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith May God now take the Word And hide it in our hearts And may it come back In our time of need To guide and to direct us In our walk And in our relationship with God That place of first love The first bloom of love In that relationship with God And may you experience again The presence and the power of God Working in your life In Jesus' name Is it just me Or does everyone want to bless their mom For the entire month of May Rather than only on Mother's Day I want to bless my mom so much I can't help it Here's what I did I found these great books Written by Kay Smith Pastor Chuck's wife Went online Ordered them And had them shipped Directly to my mom She called me as soon as she got them And let me tell you She hasn't stopped talking about How Kay's books have helped her To be a better mom If you want to bless your mom Just don't send her flowers And candy this year Why not give her Kay Smith's books Pleasing God Reflecting God And Kay's Bible Study In the Book of Philippians For more information Visit thewordfortoday.org And simply click to order and ship Or you can call 1-800-272-WORD That's 800-272-9673 Your mom's going to love it This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California