“To go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”
~ Numbers 27:17
Hi James and Ellen,
If you have a question, who do you go to for an answer? If you are at home, do you go to your ma and/or dad for an answer to a question that you have? If you are at school, do you go to your teacher for an answer to a question that you have? Do you like to ask questions? Questions will help you find out what you want to know. It will not be long and you will no longer need to go to your ma and/or dad or to your teacher or to . . . with a question that you have; you will soon be using a computer to answer questions that you have about anything and everything. If your ma and/or dad do not have the answer for a question that you have, your ma and/or dad can go to their computer to have their computer tell them what the answer is for you. If your teacher does not have the answer for a question that you have, your teacher is able to go to a computer in your school to search for the answer for you. There is because of computers more and more help available today for any question that you have about anything. Have you ever gone to God with a question? Do you think that God wants you to ask Him questions? Do you think that God is so busy that He does not have time to answer your questions? Do you know what God’s voice would sound like if He answered a question that you have asked Him? God wants you to go to Him to get the answers to the questions that you have about anything and everything. God wants you to go to Him to ask Him about His will or plan for your life. God wants you to go Him to ask Him about why things happen in the way that they happen. God wants you to go to Him to ask Him about any decision that you will have to make – such as the college that He would like you to attend or the person that He would have you to marry or . . . God has all your life answers to all your life questions; all you need to do is to wait for His still, quiet voice to tell you in His time the answer.
Can you think of a Biblical character who seemed to be always talking with God – who was always asking God for help? You can find guys and gals throughout the Bible who interacted directly with God. There are guys and gals in the Old Testament who communicated directly with God. Moses often spoke with God. Moses wrote in Numbers 27 about a couple of times when he talked with God. Moses was facing with having to make two rather difficult calls. Moses went to God to ask God to make the tough decisions for him. Moses had been tasked by God to lead His over two million specially chosen guys, gals and kids – the Israelite people group, through an arid and barren wasteland to a fertile land area which had once been lived in by Abraham. Abraham was the Israelite people group’s patriarch. The first problematic ruling that Moses had to make was when five gals came to Moses to ask Moses for land for themselves in the Promised Land. These five gals were from the Manasseh tribal clan. The gal’s dad – Zelophehad, had died during the desert exodus because of the sin that he had committed. Do you know how Zelophehad sinned? Even after all that God had done so that His specially chosen guys, gals and kids would be able to leave Egypt, God’s specially chosen guys, gals and kids had a difficult time trusting God to lead them. God had Moses send twelve spies – one spy from each tribal clan, into the Promised Land to check out the land. Ten of these spies returned from their spy trip into the Promised Land with a report that it would be impossible to eradicate every single guy, gal and kid who was living in the Promised Land. Two of the spies – Joshua and Caleb, returned from their spy trip into the Promised Land with a report that it would be possible to stamp out every single guy, gal and kid who was living in the Promised Land. The Israelite people group’s guys and gals sided with the ten pessimistic spies and began to gripe about having had to leave Egypt when they should have stayed in Egypt. How do you think that God felt about this? God was not happy with His specially chosen guys and gals. God told His specially chosen guys and gals that guys over a certain age would not be able to enter the Promised Land. God made His specially chosen guys, gals and kids do wilderness wandering for forty years. During the forty years of wandering around in a wilderness, all the guys who were twenty years old and older – including the dad of the five gals who went to talk with Moses. These five gals did not have any bros. The five gals knew that they would soon be going into the land which God had promised His specially chosen guys and gals that they would have as their very own land in which to live. These five gals wanted a piece of land in the Promised Land. Moses asked God whether these gals should get land or not. God told Moses yes to giving the five gals a piece of land as their very own land in the Promised Land.
Moses knew because of something that he had done which God had told him that he was not to do – which angered God, that God would not let him go into the Promised Land. God would let Moses see the Promised Land but that was it. Moses asked God to choose the guy who could lead the guys and gals who God had specially chosen for Himself into the Promised Land. Moses wrote what is now verse 17 that he asked God for a guy “to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”’ God told Moses that Joshua would be the guy who would replace him as the leader over His specially chosen guys, gals and kids. Joshua was one of the two spies who came back – forty years earlier, from the spy trip into the Promised Land with a report that the guys, gals and kids who were living in the Promised Land could be removed. Because Joshua and Caleb reported what they did, God promised these two guys that they would be able to enter the Promised Land. So – if you have a question for God right now – ask it and listen for His answer.
Numbers 27 (92)