Numbers 30:1-2 – I Should Understand – Bible study

Numbers 30:1-2 I Should Understand I came to this text because something happened to me this week and it is bothering me. Someone had an item for sale (2 pallets of sod) and I contacted them via social media. We did not haggle on the price. I was willing to pay the price posted. They had four of an item. I said that I would take two. The seller replied ok and added that I would have to come in the evening after her husband got off work. I said I will be there the next day and would call for an address before I left. Understand, the item was not very important to me. I did not find it. Someone else did. It was not a great price. It was a fair price and I believe I will find the same item at the same price if I want to look for it. At the time, I was not looking for the item, but I had mentioned a desire for something along these lines and the person I mentioned it to saw this and sent me the link. So the next day comes alongand I did arrange my schedule so that I would be free to go on her time tableand called. She did not answer but called back within 5 or 10 minutes to tell me she had sold all four to someone else. I said, "Ok. Good-bye," but as I was hanging up, she said something else and it is that something else that has bothered me, She said, "Thank you for understanding." I thought, "Understanding what? Is there something I should be understanding here?" Then I realized, there was. I. I should understand what has happened to our people. A. Most have no integrity. 1. Integrity deal with honesty. It is our honesty trail. a. We can be honest in our words. b. We can be honest in our works. 2. Honesty is one of our "bag of traits" which make up our character. 3. Our character is our complete bag of traits. 4. Everyone had character. a. The problem is not everyone has a "good" character. b. If the trails in our bag of traits are not good and moral, we still have a character–just not a good one. 5. As Christians, we do not want a good or even a moral character. a. We want a godly or god-like character. b. We can learn that kind of character from the Bible. B. Yesterday, hundreds of "March for Our Lives" rallies were planned across the entire planet. 1. A website set up by some of the organizers said, "More than 800 protests were planned in every American state and on every continent except for Antarctica." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/us/march-for-our-lives.html 2. Of course this is in small part a response to the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February. 3. The philosophy of the majority of the world is, "If we get rid of guns, we will get rid of shootings." (And I am not wanting to get involved in that issue tonight.) 4. I simply want to point out that there are more tried and true ways to put an end to such behavior. 5. We could return to teaching character, integrity, right and wrong, proper and improper, honest and dishonesty, good and bad from the Bible. 6. That would fix the problems that we are having with our schools, with our children, with violence, with drugs, and with so many other problems. 7. If it did not completely fix them, it would drop the bad statistics so much it would surprise the entire world. C. We cannot focus on the entire bag of traits so let’s just focus on one, integrity. 1. Is integrity, honesty, important? a. Absolutely! b. Commerce does not work without integrity. c. Ministry does not work without integrity. d. Marriage does not work without integrity. 2. May I give you some helps to build integrity. a. Don’t commit to do something lightly or in haste. b. Don’t commit to do anything wrong or questionable. c. Don’t commit to do anything you know you can’t or won’t do. d. If you commit to do something, do it. 3. Someone says, "Well, there was no contract." a. Character is not living up to a legal contract. b. Character is living up to your word. II. I should understand that this failing is of the home. A. I like the meme that says, "We didnt need gun control when we had child control." 1. I know the times are changing. a. The devil has stronger control today than just a few years ago. b. The church is failing. Compromise and false doctrine is the way of the 21st century church. c. Schools ae struggling. Children are out of control and the teachers cant do anything about it. d. God seems more distant. It seems harder to see Gods hand in the lives of others. 2. But I believe all of these are the results of failure in the home. Pr 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. a. If the child is trained correctly at home, he will behave correctly at school. b. If the child is trained correctly at home, the devil will not get into him outside of the home. c. If the child is trained correctly at home, God will walk with him and he will walk with God. That would strengthen our country, our churches, our states, and our world. d. If the child is trained correctly at home, we will see Gods hands in the lives of others. B. Helps to train up a child correctly. 1. Start before birth. a. A child does not begin to live at birth and a child should not start going to church, hearing the Bible being read or hear the preaching of Gods Word at birth. b. And he certainly should not start those things AFTER birth. c. Let that child grow in the womb in church. Let him hear the songs of Zion through a bag of watery fluids. Let his first words be AMEN and GLORY. d. And keep doing those things every week as long as you have him. 2. Memorize the Bible with our children. a. Pour Gods Word into your child like milk into an infant. b. If you do not, you will regret it in the days to come. c. Memorize it. Teach it. Sing it. Quote it. Apply it. d. Dont leave the Bible on a shelf. Live it and show your children how to live it. 3. Live the Bible yourself. a. Let your children know nothing of profanity, vulgarity, lewdness, lasciviousness, wrath, deceit, gossip, thief, jealousy, and vice. b. Rather, teach them love, mercy, holiness, diligence, responsibility, respect, honor, loyalty, honesty, sincerity, purity, and forgiveness. c. Dont you be the teacher of evil to your own children. d. Mark it down: Mostthe vast majorityof the children who were raised in church and grow up to cause their parents grief, learn it from the parents. 4. Worship and serve God together. a. I think one of the things that helped our children become who they are is the fact that they grew up in a house that worshipped and served God together. b. It wasnt always easy. It wasnt always pleasant, but they got see that Christianity was not just weekend visitation. c. Dont get me wrong. (1) Our home is not the home that I would recommend to model yours after. (2) But despite the many failings, I believe Gods prominence there throughout the week (and He should have more prominence) provided a visual of God that helped them to turn out at least as well as they did. 5. Separate yourself and your family from this world. a. Raise your children in Gods Word and world. b. People will say, "You kids wont know how to handle reality if you shelter them." c. Answers: (1) And how well are the ones handling it who are exposed to the world? (2) Thats a lie. You shelter them as much as you can. They will still have plenty of opportunity to see the real world. III. I should understand that we must teach such truths. A. So many of the problems or our society could be helped and even healed if we would return to the Bible, to teaching God’s is real, to teaching there is a heaven and a hell, but the world is not going to do that. B. The world we are living in has been created by liberals who wanted to experiment with our children. 1. They wanted to teach them that they are animals. 2. They wanted to teach them that they are accidents. 3. They wanted to teach them that death is the end. 4. This world is what their teaching has produced. C. So much could be fixed if they would just teach the truth, but they won’t. D. So we must. 1. I love to teach and preach doctrine, but we have to also teach and preach holy and righteous living. 2. May God help us to do so.