Who is Nahshon — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:00 Opening prayer and introduction

Answer. So you can ponder that while we open a word of prayer. Father, we're we're very grateful that you've given us the opportunity to be here today. We pray that the word you have prepared in my heart will be that which is appropriate and will go forth today. Help me to get out of the way and help you to get in the way.

So, lord, we do pray for for this as we go forward. Your son's name we pray. Amen. Okay. What is Naishan?

Now some of you may have already looked it up because Google goes so fast that you already know all about it. Right? Some of you who teach bible or something like that might already know the answer because you're way ahead of me. But we'll just start off with the show of hands. Okay?

We'll start off with the first one. A city of refuge in the Mountains Of Ephraim. Who thinks that's the right answer? 1234. Nope.

The name of an annual Jewish festival. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Raise your hands. Alright. Nope.

The name of Abraham's grandfather. That's gotta be it, isn't it? Anybody? Nobody picking that one. Ancient weapon used by Samson.

Did anybody know what the ancient weapon was that Samson used? A jawbone of a donkey. That's right. Nope. That's not right.

So that leaves only one here. None of the above. I'll pick that one after I flashed it up there. Very good. So it is none of the above, and I'll help you out a little bit here.

Let's let's figure out where it's from. The Old Testament or the New Testament that might narrow it down. Anybody got a guess? I'm gonna have to tie my shoe. I'm gonna fall down here.

Sorry. Anybody got an answer? Who's... Old Testament. Raise it up there.

Alright. Very good. New Testament. Very good. I think Bob's right.

It's both. It's the Old Testament and the New Testament you find it in. So that doesn't help us any either. Here's the first mention of Naishon in the Bible. It's Exodus six twenty three.

It says, Aaron took to himself to himself Elisheba daughter of Amminadab, sister of Naishan, his wife. So who is this guy? He is the brother-in-law to Aaron. Okay. Now who is Aaron?

Aaron is Moses's brother. Right? So you could imagine, but we we... It just sort of sets things for us, doesn't? We're in the period of time where Moses is an adult.

When Moses is an adult, what does he do? He leads the people out of Egypt. Right? The Exodus, we talk about that. So it sort of sets our tone.

It sets the period of time we're gonna be talking about today. This guy named Naishan. Okay? And what he's done, who he was, what we can learn from him today. So you could imagine, first of all, that because he is a brother-in-law to Aaron, close relation or a close proximity to Moses.

So you can you can imagine too. Moses comes back. Right? He meets with those people that are around. And what's he do?

Calls people to him. Well, I'm gonna bet that this guy was one of the people that was sitting at the front of the table with him. Okay? He was the guy that or one of the guys that was listening to Moses say, this is what the lord has put upon my heart. So, let's talk a little bit more about that.

Now, in order to get this, we need to understand a little bit about some basic building blocks of the Old Testament. This is a real important one and if you walk away with nothing today, I hope this is one gives you a picture for the tribes of Israel, okay? Now, you really we know about Abraham. He gets his call from the lord. He leaves, right?

Heading to a promise that the lord has given him. His son, Isaac, is born very late in life. A miracle baby if you will to him and his wife, Sarah. Right? They have twins, Jacob and Esau.

Right? Esau, what does he do? He sells his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. Devin, that would be a very bad choice. Right?

He hates lentils. But... So... Or I say lentils. Maybe it wasn't a stew.

But he did that. Okay? We know that that the line goes on through Jacob. Eventually, he's renamed as Israel. Right?

So we talk about the Israelites or the the the the nation of Israel. This is the lineage that we're talking about. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Israel. Okay? Isaac sends Jacob off to find a wife.

And where does he send him to find a wife? He sends him back to where he found a wife. Okay? And this is where he goes to his brother or his wife's brother, Rebecca's brother, Laban. Okay?

To find a wife there. Okay? So this is uncle Laban treating his his brother or his nephew, if you will, Jacob, so poorly, we'll see as we go on. Not too long after he's there, Laban says, well, if you're gonna work for me or stick around here, what is it that I can give you as wages? And he says, you know, younger daughter of your Rachel has really caught my eye.

And Laban says, that's fine. Why should I give her to anybody else? Why not you? And I'll tell you what, if you work for me seven years, she's yours. So he does.

He works for seven years. He said that she was beautiful in form and appearance. He loved her so much that it went... The seven years went past like that. We've all done that.

Right? How how time flies when we're having fun, if you will. And he's having fun. He's doing a great job. He's got this this woman in his sights.

And so the time comes, he says, hey. It's seven years. I wanna get married. I want the daughter you promised me. Laban says, no problem.

Let's have a big party. Here she is. And the next morning, he wakes up with Leah. Now that's hard for us to imagine. But I can imagine...

I I can I can, you know, sort of put it in my mind that he was dreadfully surprised and dreadfully upset and dreadfully just in a way thinking, wait a minute, what happened? I didn't mean to do this. I didn't want to do this. Am I in trouble? What did I do?

What do do now? I wanted Rachel. And what did he get? He got Leah instead. So he worked seven years and he goes back to lay in Laban and he says, what have you done to me?

Laban says, hey in our culture it's just not done that way. Now he didn't happen to mention this for seven years, right? The way we do it in our culture is you get the oldest daughter first. It would be improper for the younger daughter to be married before the older daughter. Now there's some in this room that might think that's probably right, but it happens, doesn't it?

And so here he is, he's married, he's consummated the marriage apparently with Leah. So Laban says, hey, that's fine. You're present. Leah is his maid, Zilpa. So he, you know, they leave as a family unit now with Leah married to Jacob.

The maid is Zilpa. Okay? He serves seven more years. Finally, he gets married to Rachel. Her gift is Bilha as a maid.

7:44 The twelve tribes and their mothers

Okay? So right off the bat, he loves Rachel a lot. But she's not having babies. Leah is. And so Leah, in short order, goes through four men.

Four sons in this order. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah. Very important to remember those names. Those names will keep coming back up as all the way through the Bible. These are where they come from.

It's from Leah, the one quote unquote that Jacob did not love that was given to him in deception. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah. Okay? Now Rachel's not happy about this. Remember the story, don't we?

She's really upset and she says, I'm not having babies, but why not? It should be that I did, but I can cook up a plan. Maybe she had heard about Sarah's plan before with her in laws and that story. Who knows why? But she decides Bilhah would be a good surrogate mother and she has two babies through Abraham.

Okay? Now this is a bad idea, a bad plan, shouldn't have happened, but this is what they decided to do. Now it's still part of her, if you will, household. And folks if we just think about this for a minute, this is awful. This is her servant.

Okay? That she essentially forced to do this. Okay? It's an awful situation when you really consider it, but this is what happened. There they are.

Reuben Simeon, Levi Judah, Dan Naftali. Are you with me so far? You following? We getting there? Okay.

Now, unfortunately, Leah stops having babies, and she says, I'm jealous again. So what do I do? I've got a mate. I could do the same thing. She takes Zilpah, Gad, and Asher are the next two.

Okay. So we've gotten through... How many is that Joey? Eight. 10.

You're right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Okay. And then Leah starts becoming fertile again, and we've got Issachar and Zebulun. Okay?

So at least, you know, here's six out of what do we know, how many tribes are there in Israel? 12. You remember that number. I'm coming back to you, Joey. Okay.

So here are 10. Rachel is totally upset. Jacob's upset. And I gotta believe they remember what happened with Isaac. Right?

They remember the stories late in life. Please Lord, maybe we could be like that too. And and all of a sudden, here comes Joseph. So this is important to remember, why Joseph was so special. It was from Rachel, the one who Jacob loved the most, the one he worked fourteen years for, the one it was it was just the one he had waited for just like maybe his grandfather had.

Okay? Very special person, and he dotes on him thinking, maybe this is just like Isaac late in my life. This is the one I have just like him. What a special person he is, and he dotes on him, treats him like none of the others. Okay?

These 11 are born before Jacob decides, you know what? Time to go. Lord says, it's time to go. We're gonna try and leave Laban. Now that's a whole big process we're not gonna get in today, but he does finally break away through a big process.

He leaves the household, if you will, of Lebanon to become his own household with these 11. Along the way, all of a sudden Rachel's gonna have another baby. Right? And Benjamin is born. Okay?

Unfortunately, after Benjamin is born, just after Benjamin is born, what happens? What happens? Rachel dies. Dies in childbirth or dies as a result of childbirth and probably was not uncommon in those days. It was it's still not uncommon in sometimes that that women die giving birth.

So now here's Benjamin. And you you remember the story about bring me Benjamin, Joseph says. Right? Well, imagine Jacob saying these are the only two of my loved wife. We have to understand this picture, if you will, so that we can understand the Old Testament and when we're referring to the tribes of Israel.

Okay? So I wanted to just build that block, if you will, for you. Okay? And there they are. Right?

The 12... Right Joey? Or Phil? The 12 tribes. That's them.

12:50 Joseph in Egypt and his sons

They go to Egypt where their brother Joseph, unbeknownst to them, has been storing up food to save them. And 70 of them it says, actually that extended family end up picking up and moving into the land of Egypt. Okay? There's the 12, Jacob, his wives, their maids, and the children. Okay?

Well, get there. Joseph reveals himself. Joseph has been making time there, and he's married a woman in Egypt. Right? He marries a woman in Egypt after he was sold into slavery essentially.

We know that story. I'm not gonna belabor it. And he ends up having two children. Alright? Do you know what their names were?

Anybody? Manasseh and Ephraim. That's right. Manasseh and Ephraim. One and two in that order.

Is that right, Ray? Manasseh and Ephraim and before Abraham die, I'm sorry, before Jacob dies, he blesses them and he blesses Ephraim first. And Joseph said, woah, woah, wait before you do that, that's not what you should be doing. Manasseh is the one that was born first. He's the firstborn.

And and and Jacob says, no, you don't understand. Ephraim will be a leader amongst the tribes. Okay. We'll see that a little bit farther as we go. Okay.

So here we are. Now we've got Ephraim and Manasseh. Not only does he bless them, but he says, your two sons Joseph will have the same rights as if they were my sons. Okay. Back to you Phil.

How many's up there now? But you told me there was only 12. There's a problem here, isn't there? Well, keep watching. Here's the tribes.

Okay? We have 13. We need to resolve that. How do things get divided up 12 different ways? I had a hard time figuring this out until I really sorted it out in my own mind.

Little while later, like five generations and an exodus later, we come to this time when we hit Numbers chapter one. This is where Naishan... We're coming back to our guy. Okay? He's Naishan.

Here he is. It says, in the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt. So basically thirteen months after they left Egypt. Okay? This is a time frame.

They left Egypt. They went out. They had to get settled in. They ate a bunch of manna. You know, they're doing a lot of stuff.

Right? And the first day and the second... Now I'm reading just the highlighted portions here for sake of time. It says, I want you to go out and I want you to count all of the men from 20 years old and above. That's your job.

Moses and Aaron, go do that. Okay? And then when they counted them, these are the men who stand shall stand with you from Judah. This is the leader. From Judah, Naishan, the son of Amminadab.

Here's... We got our guys back again. So what do we know about him? He's from Judah, and he's gonna be a leader. Thirteen months after he left Egypt, and then it moves on a little bit.

We go to Numbers chapter two. It says, Nayshan, the son of Aminadab, shall be the leader of the children of Judah. His army was numbered at 74,600 men above the age of 20. Okay? Those who kill shall camp next to him shall be the tribe of Issachar.

Then comes a tribe of Zebulun. All who were numbered according to the armies of the forces with Judah were 186,400. Now are you confused yet? Now that's only one tribe that they're talking about. So let's try and see if we can add it up here.

Here's those tribes. 13 again, right? So the leader, if the tribe of Judah, say it with me, who was it? Okay. I'm I'm not making my point here.

The Naishan is the guy... Is the the leader of the tribe of Judah. Okay? His Naishan and they did a census. How many men did he have with him?

His army was included how many? 74,600 men from the tribe of Judah were ready to fight, were ready to go to war, were ready to do battle. Okay? What about the rest of them? Well, here's the other guys that were leading.

Now I've got Moses in there. He's just, you know, we're gonna talk about that in a second. And here's how many people we had. Now Nayshan is the leader of the tribe of Judah. Right?

He is here with 74,600, and I'm gonna I'm gonna make it easy for you. He's got the most guys. Alright? Look at the numbers. He's got the most.

17:59 Camp arrangements and the tribes

Right? So Judah is gonna be over there. He's gonna camp, and they're gonna make up one army of three tribes. Okay? The three tribes include Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun.

Now let's go back. Where are those guys from? Right here. These Judah's little brothers. Five generations afterwards, he's sitting here.

He's still hanging out with the descendants of his little brothers. Okay? That's not insignificant. The Lord does this, and the Lord understands that this was what was gonna happen. K?

Then we're gonna look at Reuben. Now here's Reuben. He was the firstborn. Right? And he's camping with Simeon and Gad.

Well, there's Simeon right there, and here's Gad, not part of his mother's progeny, if you will, but part of his mother's maid. So living in the same household with him back in the day. You you you you following the way I'm building them up there? Okay. Or trying to?

The next one is Ephraim. Now remember Ephraim's gonna be the leader. Well, here's Ephraim. He's the he's... This tribe, if you will, is the lead in the North.

And he's hanging out with, should we be surprised, that it's Benjamin and Manessa. Okay? These these things keep flowing through. And then there's Dan. Okay?

Dan, Asher, and Naftali. Now Dan is over here, and Naftali is his blood brother, and then Asher is the only one that's somewhat out of position, but they sort of put them together. They're fourth in line. I don't think that's a surprise. Okay?

So now how many do we have up there, Philip, on the right hand side? Four times three is 12 tribes. Where's that other one? Well the other one is this, well if this is the army of Israel, I'm sorry I got a little ahead of myself. These are the number of the men ready to go to war, ready to do battle, warriors above 20 years old.

It's real important to remember 20 and above. Okay? Without the Levites. Okay? Well, Levi, that tribe, the Lord says, you know what?

Do you remember back when we were in Egypt, I consecrated all of the firstborn to myself. Well, instead of doing that because it's scattered throughout all the tribes, I'm gonna take the whole tribe of Levi. As a matter of fact, count them up, and you're gonna find that there's 8,000 some men. That's not quite as many as there are firstborn throughout the other tribes, so you owe me. You owe me this much money.

Put that into the coffers for the Levites, but the Levites are gonna be set aside, gonna be mine. That's what we do with the thirteenth tribe. Does that make sense now, Philip? A little bit more sense? Good.

It was hard for me to figure out. Add them all up. 603,550 fighting men, plus 8,580 Levites. Now they're over 30 years old. For some reason, they had to change the way they added them up.

But but call it 611,000 men. Now if we know there's that many men, 20 or 30 and above, what do we also know? Most of them are probably heads of their families. Most of them probably have children. So how many do we have here total?

These are just the men, 600 or 611,000 men. So in every household, we all know... We know there's a mommy, a daddy, a a, you know, a baby and another baby. Right? A boy and a girl.

Everyone has that. Right? So... Well, most everyone. So that's like four in each family.

So if we multiply 611,000 times four, what do we have? About two and a half million people. Now they're camping together. This isn't just the army camp, and this is everybody camping together. So this guy, Neishan.

Right? He's right here. Or you could say, Ahiyezar or if you... Or Ahira, whoever those guys are. They are the leaders of big groups of people.

Okay? Nayshan is like the mayor of Cleveland. Okay? 2,500,000 people in Ohio now, if you add up the two largest counties, which are the counties surround Franklin County surrounding Columbus and Cuyahoga County surrounding area of Cleveland, there's 2,400,000 people there. So that's how many people we're talking about.

It's a lot of folks that we're we're trying to move around and you'll see just how much they do. So this is a important building block to understand where we're at. So there's the army and they say, look this is looking real good. Everybody's happy. What should we do?

23:10 Leaders' offerings and Nahshon's role

He led the way. This is an important guy. He was the first guy of the largest army of the largest group of army of the leaders of the city of Cleveland sized people. Right? And he was the first one leading the way.

Good guy? Important guy? How is it we never heard about him before? I don't know. So...

Anyway, we move on to to Numbers chapter 10. There are a few things happen. It says, now it came to pass in the twentieth day of the second month. If you add up from where we started in the numbers one to here, that's nineteen days later or the twentieth day in bible type terms. Right?

And the children of Israel set out from the wilderness Hana on the journey. So they started out for the first time according to the command by the... Of of the Lord by the hand of Moses. Moses is leading an army of 603,550 men plus 8,580 worshiping or serving Levites. Right?

And Judah was the first one to set out. So you could imagine the individual that took the first step in that direction towards the promised land may have been this guy that we're talking about, Neishan. They went for nineteen... It was nineteen day difference and everything's happy, right? It's all good.

They're making offerings. They're leading out. They're headed to the promised land. It's excitement is building. You can see that they're ready to go.

Even so much that Moses says to Hobab, the son of Ruel, the Midianite Moses' father-in-law. He says this, we are setting out for the place of which the Lord said, I will give it to you. Moses was firmly convinced. That's where they're headed. Okay?

Come with us and we will treat you well for the Lord has promised good things to Israel. It's all looking up, isn't it? All good. You can't imagine a year and a month later, two months now, they're ready to enter the promised land. They're organized.

They've got leaders. They've got standards. They've got, you know, order of battle. They make it three days journey before they start complaining. Now does that surprise you?

That would never happen around here. I know. People don't complain in The United States Of America. So we got nothing to complain about, do we? They they had plenty to complain about.

The Lord had been providing for their food all this time, and these leaders are leading them, but they're upset because... We're gonna talk a little bit about spy story. I'm I'm I'm ruining the suspense, but that's where we're headed. They are complaining because all we have to eat is this manna. Is it too much to ask for a little meat?

I mean, I know we've survived all this time, but what about it? You know what? We could go back to Egypt. We could eat cucumbers and melons and all those kind of big list there, what we had when we were in Egypt. They liked it there, I guess, but they wanted to leave at one point.

So they wanna go back. The Lord is totally displeased with him. Moses is frustrated saying, I don't know how did they get these folks to head in the right direction. Okay? Even Aaron and Miriam rebel against Moses' leadership, and the Lord puts them in their place.

It's a really interesting conversation if you wanna read it in chapter 12 of Numbers. I believe that the next step is the Lord's effort to restore the plan. I told you I was taking you. Now what I'm going to do is I'm gonna give you a glimpse of what is there for you. I'm upset, but but if if I show you what it is, would that help?

27:29 The spies' report and Caleb's courage

Right? And they take a forty day trip, and they return with a report to Moses, the leaders, and the whole congregation. And what did they say? Just like you said, Lord, the land flows with milk and honey. Meaning, abundance.

There's all kinds of stuff there. In order to get milk, you gotta have something produced in the milk. In order to produce the milk, you gotta have good forage for those producing the milk. In order to get honey, you've gotta have bees that are making the honey. In order to get the bees, they have to have flowers.

It's flowing with milk and honey. But, you know, the folks that live there, kind of big, kind of strong. We're kind of afraid of them. And then up steps this guy. Anybody heard of Caleb before?

Okay. And Caleb says this. He says, let us go up at once and take possession for we are able to overcome it. You could imagine just spouting that out. You know, like Bob out front.

We can do it. Right? That was Caleb and I believe it. So who's Caleb? Well, let's see where he's at.

Caleb is from tribe of Judah. Who's the leader of the tribe of Judah? Our God, Naishon. Right? Now, this is fascinating to me because there's no way in my mind that they pick a guy named Caleb, who's the leader.

Is... They say he's the leader of men in the tribe of Judah. Well known in my mind. We trust this guy. We want this guy to go spy it out for us.

We wanna hear his report. And don't don't you believe that nation was part of that? He's my guy. I'm sending Caleb. Well, there he is.

The next day, they whine and complain about this all night it appears and Israel says, you know what? This is like what it says Israel, like the whole everybody's complaining and whining and saying, if we only had died before this would happen, we don't want to get killed. We could've died here in the wilderness or even back in Egypt but I don't want to be here. What? Let's choose another leader.

Who do you think that was? Maybe it's this guy. The first guy, head of the army. The head... The first guy out.

I don't know. It doesn't say. This is my speculation, but it's an idea. Joshua and Caleb now stand up and say this. Notice the difference from when Joshua stood up till Joshua and Caleb stand up.

If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land. Now that's a little change of attitude. It's still strong like Caleb, right? But it's tempered by the Lord's leading, Joshua. Okay?

Here it's a little bit different, but they still say we should go. Two guys. Joshua is from the tribe of Ephraim. There's Ephraim leading the way again. Okay?

Modus... The Lord's upset. He says, no. You guys don't get it. I don't understand.

Why not? The only the two are the ones that say that I wanna go. And Moses says, look, don't let them think that Egypt wins. Don't let Egypt think they win. If you kill them all out here, Egypt's gonna say, they didn't have it with...

The lord wasn't with them anyhow. Right? Don't let them guys win and so, the lord says, okay. I'm not going to kill em all but everyone of them over 20 years old. Now, remember, it was over 20.

They numbered him. 603,550. All those folks minus two. So that's 603,548 warriors are going to die in the next forty years, and these two guys are the only ones that are gone. Your children will inherit what I told you you were gonna get.

They're gonna be shepherds in this land until then. Not a bad vocation for people preparing. What do they decide to do then? Oh you're right Lord, we're sorry. Now now we want to do it.

Now we're gonna go. Come on guys, let's all go up and try and conquer the land. And it's insincere, it's late obedience, and the invasion fails. Who might have been leading that way? There he is.

Right up there. This is the guy. He... If he wasn't leading the way, he was part of it. He was the leader of the tribe of Judah.

Amongst all these other guys, at least these folks in the leader column, if you will. These were the guys who were saying, no, no, no. Now we can do it. But they fail. Alright.

32:36 Nahshon in the genealogy of Jesus

And and first you're gonna look at this and say Matthew one and Luke... No. Isn't that the begats and the begats and the son ofs and all that kind of stuff? I always skip that part. Well, we shouldn't skip that part.

Okay? This is important. Okay? It's a genealogy. So don't let me...

Don't run away. It's okay. We'll get through it. Here we we started with Abraham. We know it starts with Adam but we started with Abraham today.

We had Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob had Judah was one of his son. His fourth son from Leah, right? He ends up having Perez, okay, through Tamar, that's a whole different story. And so these are the folks that enter, those that are still alive from that lineage, they're the ones that enter the land.

Or or I'm sorry, they are the ones that are alive when they go into Egypt, come out of Egypt, and all that. These are the folks that are born... I'm I'm getting myself mixed up. I'm sorry. Judah and Perez enter Egypt.

Okay? Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, and Naishon are born in Egypt. Okay? There's our guy again. So you're following...

He's in the tribe of Judah. He's following along in Judah, and then others are born after him. A guy by the name of Salmon is his son. Boaz, you've heard of him before. Right?

Obed, Jesse. How about this next guy? David, and then Solomon. Even down to the point where Jesus. This is the...

He's in the lineage of the Jesus. Now how is it we never... I never heard of that guy before. Right? Here's Nayshan.

He's in the lineage of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. That has to mean something. Okay? Has to mean something. Now we could go on, and I I have a lot more I could talk about related to Judah, his story, the story of Salmon, even though he's not mentioned, what he did is incredible.

Boaz, there's a lot about him. Very good story. David, Don talked about him a couple weeks ago, and then of course Solomon. Equally and maybe even more impressive is a study of these four women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Fascinating stories.

And and when we really look at this through the lineage of the Lord Jesus, more fascinating. But let's go back to our guy, Neishan. We know he grew up in Egypt. Right? He had to have heard, we don't like it here.

The Lord has promised us something. We wanna leave. Right? Was He a brother-in-law to Aaron, Soemeni was close to Moses. He was right in the mix of all of it.

He knew what was going on. The leader of the tribe of Judah leading the way, the largest army, the largest group of armies. He picked as his spy to go represent him, Caleb, to go out and spy the land. Caleb stood up and said, we ought to go. Naishan said, no, don't think so.

Don't know why. I've questioned his motives and and give you some theories, but he he don't... We don't know exactly why, but it ain't looking good. Right? He rejected the Lord's plan and then I believe led a failed invasion into the land that they were supposed to get and the Lord was gonna give them.

Okay? And what was the result of that? He died in the wilderness. He died in the wilderness. This is the guy that that was of the line of Jesus who died in the wilderness.

Now we could go on and talk about him more, but he had a front row seat with a great opportunity to do the right thing. So at this point we would have to say this guy was a great failure. Unfortunate in some respects, right? But if you were to look at the fact that he's the father of Salmon, and I'm gonna save that story for you to look up on your own. Or we can talk about it later maybe.

He was the father-in-law of Rahab. Interesting story. He's a grandfather of Boaz who's the redeemer of Ruth. Tremendous story. Love story.

If you want to read a love story, read the book of Ruth. Great great grandfather of David And eventually an ancestor of Jesus. Now this guy went from knucklehead to ancestor of Jesus in just a couple clicks of my little new thingy here, right? That's a different view on success, isn't it? It's a much longer view on life.

It's a great God that decided this was possible and that he could use this man and many others. And therefore, in some ways you could save as a great success. Alright. So what are the conclusions, applications you want to take away? These are the ones I've got.

You you pick your own, but here's here's what I'm thinking. I hope I've given you some sort of framework to understand parts of the Old Testament. Right? We understand 12 verses 13 now, don't we, Philip? And and we we understand how those tribes are interconnected and how it all plays together.

And it all goes back when we say lion of the tribe of Judah, we understand what that means. Okay? A little bit better. We have a little bit better understanding of this historical period leading up to the forty year exile. We actually covered 14 chapters of Numbers today to the best of my ability.

38:35 Lessons learned: Preparation and trust

The Lord said, go out, take a census. Go out, find the leaders. It wasn't a fool's errand. They were there. They just had to find them.

They'd been around and around for thirteen months. They were prepared to go into the land. Okay. The Lord knew this, that they were ready, and it all came together organized in the period of nineteen days there, and they're moving forward. God's in control.

He knows what we are ready for. He knows today that we're ready for tomorrow here in this world. We are afraid. I'm scared. I don't know what's going to happen.

We've heard many things about persecution probably is coming. But you know what? The Lord has prepared us for that. He also didn't send Timothy or he didn't send Paul and Barnabas out to look for elders and deacons and all those, or elders. And then later when they sent the congregation out looking for deacons, it wasn't a fool's errand either there.

They were there. The Lord has prepared us. The Lord has prepared us for this day. Let me ask you this. Are you willing to die in the wilderness?

Not be famous? Be one of those that made the big mistake that allows your son, daughter, family member to stand upon the mistake that you made? Oh, that my kids can stand on my mistakes and say, boy, I'm glad I learned from that. Well, there's here's an example of a guy that not only made, I believe, some big mistakes, but the generations that followed learned from them. You could look that up, talk about it.

Are you willing to not know what the future holds, but trust that the Lord holds the future? Generations from now maybe, we will be able to look back and say, look what happened. I never expected that. Okay. Can we learn lessons?

This this lineage and genealogy is replete with lessons learned. Judah is an excellent example. I believe Naishan is also an example. He rubbed off on the future generations. His boy, Salmon and Boaz, the stories that they told.

And Ruth and Rahab telling the stories to their kids. This is important. God plays a long game. He's not in this for today or tomorrow. He's in it for the long generations.

He's in it for eternity. His measurement of success is not our measurement of success. I think that's the story that we can get from this little known character named Nayshan. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful that you've given us an opportunity to to to seek your word and to understand things from it.

Lord, you... You've hidden so much in there. You've given us so much opportunity to learn and to know. And, Lord, we pray that you would give us the opportunity today to take one small step forward as your word has gone out. So we pray this in your son's name.

Amen.

Who is Nahshon — Exodus 6

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Who is Nahshon — Exodus 6

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