Everybody knows it will find you by Flickr User Jason Kuffer, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
A man decided to take a day off from work on September 11th, 2001, and meet his secret lover at a local hotel across town. In the meantime, a wife sees a news broadcast and hears the sirens, and she immediately fears for her husband’s safety. So, the fearful wife calls her husband who could be dead or in grave danger, but her husband answers the phone like nothing is wrong because he is not at work. When she asks if he is okay and starts asking about others he works with, the man chats about his coworkers like there are no problems because, in his morning tryst, he has missed the goings on in downtown Manhattan. He speaks about the office as if he is there, and that’s when the wife figures out that he’s not telling the truth.
Did the guy freak out once the wife told him what was going on? Did the wife divorce him once she figured out he was a lying cheater? I don’t know. Maybe the guy realized where he could’ve been if he wasn’t cheating and decided that God was giving him a second chance to do the right thing. Either way, when he left for his rendezvous, he would never have thought his sin would find him out in such a big and costly way. When people get caught in the moment a truth is revealed, they rarely react as if they expected it to happen. Whether it’s a bottle in the floor of the car at the scene of an accident, or lipstick on the collar, most cases of sin do eventually get discovered, and they are often discovered in embarrassing and public ways.
In today’s reading from Numbers 32:20 through Numbers 32:42 (the end of the chapter), we conclude another week and another Torah portion. This follows yesterday’s promise by the tribes of Gad and Reuben to fight for all of Israel while choosing to claim an inheritance of land outside The Promised Land where their brothers would be in Canaan. Moses comes back to them with an answer that if they will indeed fight for Israel as they have promised, God will authorize them to live in the land on the east side of the Jordan River, in Gilead, instead of Canaan with their brothers.
The authorization comes with a strong dose of warning, though. Moses tells the men that while God will allow what they have proposed, if they do not keep their word, God is watching and their sins will find them out. After the warning, Moses tells them to go ahead and build cities for their families and stables for their sheep, but then to go and do what they have said they would do.
The descendants of Gad and Reuben promise that every man who can fight will be armed and ready for war and will go over with Israel to battle as Moses has directed, so Moses takes the same word to Eleazar the high priest. Moses tells him that if the men go over to fight, they are to possess the land they desire, but if they refuse to fight, they are to take an inheritance in Canaan. And then Moses gave the land to the tribes requesting it plus to the half-tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph. And the tribes built cities in the lands where they had defeated enemy kings with God’s help.
I find it interesting that God gave the warning about their sins finding them out, and yet Moses made sure to say they would still have an inheritance even if they did not keep their word. God may not totally wipe us out just because we break a promise, but we may not get exactly what we were hoping for if we don’t keep the words we have given in exchange for our desires. If we tell God that we will do anything if He will just give us that dream job, then when He asks us to share our testimony with the meanest coworker there, we should keep our word if we want to keep our job in the way we want it. If not, maybe we won’t lose the job, but we may find things getting uncomfortable there, or we may get a new boss, or any number of things.
When we sin in secret and think we are getting away with it, or when we think our sins are no big deal, we need to know that God is watching and keeping a record. He says we will give an account for every idle word. And, yes, our sins will find us out, but that can be the greatest day of our lives if we use God’s findings to drive us to repent and change our ways, so our sins can be placed under the blood of Yeshua, and we can be free.
This title is from one of my favorite parodies by ApologetiX. Yeah, I know, I probably say that about almost all their videos I share, but they really are one of my favorite bands. I mean, where else can you hear the tunes you grew up with, Bible messages, praises to God, and have an altar call all in the same concert? I really respect their ministry, and my love for their music is just icing on the cake.
Today’s reading comes from Numbers 32:1 through Numbers 32:19, and begins with the descendants of Reuben and Gad speaking with Moses and Eleazar about their great quantities of livestock. They gather the community leaders together to present a proposition to them about the land The Lord conquered on the side of the Jordan River across from that which God has promised to Israel. They have noticed the land is perfect for all their cattle, so they are asking if it would be okay if they just took that land instead of having to cross over.
Moses gets pretty frustrated with these guys and begins to tell them the stories of their forefathers and why they wandered in the desert for forty years instead of inheriting their promise. He explains that what the men are asking right now is akin to the sins of their fathers that stirred up the anger of The Lord. He also explains how it is not right for them to just want their own provision and comfort in a land where the enemy has already been defeated only to let the rest of the tribes go across Jordan and have to fight for the land in which they will dwell.
The sons of Gad and Reuben get the message and present an alternate idea. They say they will go ahead and build stalls for their cattle and fortified cities for their women and children since they are not part of the armies anyway. All the fighting men will then join their brothers on the other side of the Jordan River and help them fight for their promise. They say they will not only march at the front of their armies, but they will continue to fight until the rest of Israel has taken possession of their inheritance. They claim, however, that their inheritance has fallen on the east side of the river.
At my first read-through of this, I couldn’t figure out why Moses would have gotten so angry at these men for wanting to stay across the river from their brothers. I was thinking it wasn’t very nice of them to want to split themselves off, but at the same time, if it made sense for their cattle, and it was an area they had fought for, I thought maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. It took me reading again to realize the problem wasn’t with the land as much as it was with the fact that their brothers helped them to fight for the land they now wanted. How dare they leave their brothers to fight alone just because they were now comfortable?
I guess it would be like being saved and only staying in touch with your church family and other Christians and leaving the lost to find their own way. Oh wait, too many people actually do that don’t they? I believe we call them “rabbit hole Christians” because they just go from one Christian rabbit hole to the next with no stops (in the “world”) in between. But we overcome the enemy by the word of our testimony because our testimony is what can win others to Our Savior. Don’t forget that your example in Yeshua (WWYD) is that He shared meals with tax collectors (known for their dishonesty) and sinners. Be willing to fight for the souls of others, and don’t let the devil walk into your “Jordan” (promise on this earth) and convince you to sit comfortably while the rest of the world goes to Hell.
P.S. I’m not certain how all the lands fall today, but I found an interesting site that talks of the boundaries of the promised land from God’s promise to today. Take a look at http://www.differentspirit.org/articles/boundaries.php and comment what you think about the Scripture reference from Joel at the bottom of the page. I think it means God is not very happy with those currently in charge of our country.
Crystal is, like her name, multi-faceted. She can even write about herself in third person and only feel a little awkward about it. 🙂 She loves to write; she loves kaleidoscopes, fractals, and all things colorful; she loves her husband, her family, and her feline furkids; and mostly she loves Yahveh Almighty, her Creator. She believes her creative mind is in her DNA from Him, and she believes He sees His creations as she sees the images inside a kaleidoscope–all different yet all beautiful and most beautiful when light (His light) shines through them.
Crystal Writes A Blog 
Your Sin Will Find You Out
Everybody knows it will find you by Flickr User Jason Kuffer, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works
Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
A man decided to take a day off from work on September 11th, 2001, and meet his secret lover at a local hotel across town. In the meantime, a wife sees a news broadcast and hears the sirens, and she immediately fears for her husband’s safety. So, the fearful wife calls her husband who could be dead or in grave danger, but her husband answers the phone like nothing is wrong because he is not at work. When she asks if he is okay and starts asking about others he works with, the man chats about his coworkers like there are no problems because, in his morning tryst, he has missed the goings on in downtown Manhattan. He speaks about the office as if he is there, and that’s when the wife figures out that he’s not telling the truth.
Did the guy freak out once the wife told him what was going on? Did the wife divorce him once she figured out he was a lying cheater? I don’t know. Maybe the guy realized where he could’ve been if he wasn’t cheating and decided that God was giving him a second chance to do the right thing. Either way, when he left for his rendezvous, he would never have thought his sin would find him out in such a big and costly way. When people get caught in the moment a truth is revealed, they rarely react as if they expected it to happen. Whether it’s a bottle in the floor of the car at the scene of an accident, or lipstick on the collar, most cases of sin do eventually get discovered, and they are often discovered in embarrassing and public ways.
In today’s reading from Numbers 32:20 through Numbers 32:42 (the end of the chapter), we conclude another week and another Torah portion. This follows yesterday’s promise by the tribes of Gad and Reuben to fight for all of Israel while choosing to claim an inheritance of land outside The Promised Land where their brothers would be in Canaan. Moses comes back to them with an answer that if they will indeed fight for Israel as they have promised, God will authorize them to live in the land on the east side of the Jordan River, in Gilead, instead of Canaan with their brothers.
The authorization comes with a strong dose of warning, though. Moses tells the men that while God will allow what they have proposed, if they do not keep their word, God is watching and their sins will find them out. After the warning, Moses tells them to go ahead and build cities for their families and stables for their sheep, but then to go and do what they have said they would do.
The descendants of Gad and Reuben promise that every man who can fight will be armed and ready for war and will go over with Israel to battle as Moses has directed, so Moses takes the same word to Eleazar the high priest. Moses tells him that if the men go over to fight, they are to possess the land they desire, but if they refuse to fight, they are to take an inheritance in Canaan. And then Moses gave the land to the tribes requesting it plus to the half-tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph. And the tribes built cities in the lands where they had defeated enemy kings with God’s help.
I find it interesting that God gave the warning about their sins finding them out, and yet Moses made sure to say they would still have an inheritance even if they did not keep their word. God may not totally wipe us out just because we break a promise, but we may not get exactly what we were hoping for if we don’t keep the words we have given in exchange for our desires. If we tell God that we will do anything if He will just give us that dream job, then when He asks us to share our testimony with the meanest coworker there, we should keep our word if we want to keep our job in the way we want it. If not, maybe we won’t lose the job, but we may find things getting uncomfortable there, or we may get a new boss, or any number of things.
When we sin in secret and think we are getting away with it, or when we think our sins are no big deal, we need to know that God is watching and keeping a record. He says we will give an account for every idle word. And, yes, our sins will find us out, but that can be the greatest day of our lives if we use God’s findings to drive us to repent and change our ways, so our sins can be placed under the blood of Yeshua, and we can be free.
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July 11, 2014 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | battle for Israel, Bible Commentary, Bible study, Complete Jewish Bible, Israel, Jordan River, Moses, Numbers, promised land, Scripture, sin, sin revealed, Torah Portions | 2 Comments