Making a Differencewith Pastor Phil Erickson

Feb 25th, 2011 Bring Your Cause Before The Lord

Today’s Passage – Numbers 27 – 29; Proverbs 25

(Second Milers also read Acts 28 – Romans 2; memorize Romans 10:9 – 10; 13)

“And Moses brought their cause before the LORD.” – (Numbers 27:5)

In Numbers chapter 27, we have the story of the daughters of Zelophehad. The land of Canaan was about to be divided among all of the tribes of Israel; and within each of the tribes portion, the land would be divided among the families of that tribe. Zelophehad’s family was entitled to a portion of the land, but because he had no sons, there was nobody to give the land to. The five daughters of Zelophehad boldly come to Moses and ask him to authorize that Zelophehad’s portion of land be given them, because their was no son to receive the inheritance. Moses didn’t know what to do. The law up until this point read that only a son could receive the inheritance. There was no previous case to use for precedence in this matter. Moses then goes to God, and asks Him what they should do. God settles the question in favor of the daughters, and establishes new law that would cover unique cases like this.

The point of my thought this morning is not about land distribution, and inheritances, however. I wanted to point out that Moses did not take matters into his own hands: he went to God when he wasn’t sure what to do. This question wasn’t clearly covered in the Bible up until this point; and Moses wanted to be sure that he would give the right answer, God’s answer, to these ladies.

I think there is an important lesson that we can all learn from this. There are many situations in life that will come up today that are not clearly dealt with in the Scripture. There may be Bible principle that deals with it generally, or partially; but often questions arise that are not specifically covered by God in His Word. That’s when we need to do two things: First we need to go to God in prayer, just like Moses did. Second, we need to seek some godly counsel from others who may have dealt with this situation before. Parents can find out from other more experienced Christian parents about what to do in certain situations regarding their children. Young pastors can go to the older pastors. We can benefit from the godly wisdom of others.

Now I want to emphasize again that most of our questions can be answered from the principles found in the Bible; but in those unique situations where there seems to be no Scriptural answer, seek God through prayer; and seek counsel from some godly influences in your life. Remember, in the multitude of counselors there is safety.