Promise 37 from Numbers 33:50-53

Numbers 33:50-53 - "Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places; and you shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it.'"

After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites find themselves back at the border of the promised land. This time not only does God reiterate His promise to them 40 years prior, but gives more specific instruction as to what will take place; "After you cross the Jordan, you'll drive everyone away, you'll destroy all their idols and anything that has given them their identity, and then you will move in and live there." For many people trusting in God's simple promise "Go and I'll give you the land", just isn't enough. they have to see how it will play out. They need to see the strategy first, the details laid out. This is fine sometimes, but in the process of waiting for those details to be unified, time goes by or the promise passes for some, they miss out. God is trying to teach us that He is BIG enough to have all the details sorted. We don't NEED to see how it is going to play out. And actually if we do feel we need to see those details we risk usurping what God has already planned by thinking we can do it better, or we back out if we don't like the plan. God created us unique and with different personalities, some people are organizers, planners, schedulers, flow-chart people. That's great, however there is no personality type that is exempt from the desire of God for them to simply trust that He will do what He says He'll do, He'll be who He says He is, without more details than is necessary. God will give us instruction but He will also fulfil His promise without our help.

Promise 36 from Numbers 30:8

Numbers 30:8 - "But if on the day her husband hears of it, he forbids her, then he shall annul her vow, which she is under and the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself, and the Lord will forgive her."

This passage is dealing with the vows or promises that are made. In this particular verse it is talking about promises that a married woman makes. If she makes a promise but her husband doesn't agree with it, then the promise can be annulled and she is not held to the promise nor considered wrong by God. In our day and time, this rule would not fly very well with most couples. But, if you look at the divorce rate, especially in the US, something is not working very well. Most marriages can not stand for very long in our "It's all about ME society." Most marriages break up because one or the other isn't getting out of the marriage what they expected and are not willing to make sacrifices of their own desires to accommodate the desires of the other, so they split. This verse isn't as much about keeping a promise, but it is about communication and including the spouse in decisions or promises made. If both parties of a marriage would hold off on making promises that effect both of them until they talk about it and decide together, then God will bless the words and actions of those promises, if they are honouring, of course. The promise here is that God will forgive broken promises when they come in line with His desire of joint consideration within the marriage. A vow spoken to one person should not out weigh the agreement between man and wife.

Promise 35 from Numbers 27:18-21

Numbers 27:18-21 - "So the Lord said to Moses, 'Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; and have him stand before Eleazer the priest and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight. You shall put some of your authority on him, in order that all the congregation of the sons of Israel may obey Him. Moreover, he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgement of the Urim before the Lord. At his command they shall go out and at his command they shall come in, both he and the sons of Israel with him, even all the congregation.'"

It's interesting that God, Himself says of Joshua, 'in whom is the Spirit', large "S". He doesn't say Joshua is "in the Spirit" but says the "Spirit is in him." Joshua has already been set up for great things when the Spirit came upon him (Num.11:25). Joshua has all it takes to command the multitudes because of the Spirit in him. He just needs the passing of the baton celebrating from Moses to him so the congregation knows who the boss is and he is set. When we become believers in the Jesus, God puts His Spirit on us. Jesus already passed the baton to us at the cross, He already gave us authority over man to do great things. I believe one of he reasons why we don't see more of the supernatural in our lives is because we don't recognise the authority that Jesus has already given us, nor the power we have because of God's Spirit in us, if only believers would rise up and step into their identity, Jesus would be absolutely famous everywhere.

Promise 34 from Numbers 27:6-7

Numbers 27:6-7 - "Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'The daughters of Zelophehad are right in their statements. You shall surely give them a hereditary possession among their father's brothers, and you shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them.'"

This passage speaks more to the character of God rather than a promise, but if you look close enough, you might catch a promise in there as well. Zelophehad's daughters approached Moses with a request that is opposite the laws of inheritance. In a very male dominated culture, all inheritance goes to a male in the family. Where it comes to families with no direct male heir the inheritance goes to a distant male in the same bloodline. Those girls stepped up and said, "This simply isn't fair, it's not our fault that we have no brother. We should be made the heirs of our father's inheritance." Even though God is the one who gave instructions on the laws and put them into place, He heard their request and said to Moses, "You know, they're right!" God is not so unpenetrable that He can not be approached with our desires. God is not all that interested in the law as much as He is interested in relationship. If the law was more important to God than relationship then the 10 commandments would have been enough and Jesus wouldn't have had to come to earth to show us the Father. But God is very interested in what is on the hearts of His people. So look what God, the loving Heavenly Father says, "You shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them!" Did you catch it? The inheritance of the Father will be transferred to not only the sons but to the daughters as well! All that the Father has is ours with His full blessings. When Jesus died on the cross, He passed on His inheritance to us. All that was in Him, He gave to us. It would be senseless that this means we receive the inheritance after we die and are in heaven. He gave it and we received at the time we were adopted into His family. This is why He says in Jn. 14 "With the authority I've given to you, you can do what I do and even more because I go to the Father." Because Jesus rose again and is still alive, the inheritance continues to grow beyond what He revealed to us in scripture and He continues to pass onto us that which is from the Kingdom. There is always MORE that He wants to fill us with. It's a limitless inheritance. So.... He not only hears us, He cares about what we care about and He pours out His unlimited inheritance into our lives. He is such a great Daddy!

Promise 33 from Numbers 25:11-13

Num. 25:11-13 - "'Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away My wrath from the son of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy. Therefore say, 'Behold I give him My covenant of peace; and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.'"

God is a jealous God, He will go to extremes to protect His people from dividing their attention between Him and others. He will also go to extremes to bless those who are equally jealous for those things He is jealous for. Because of Phinehas' behaviour of killing the man who brought the Midianite women into the camp, knowing that the man's action would cause grave consequences later on down the road, God blessed Phinehas and all those who come after him in his family with peace and of priesthood. Meaning, they would never have to fight in war. Phinehas, himself made atonement for the sons of Israel, this made God happy. He loves it when we step up to bat and interceded for others so that they would come into right relationship with God. When we do that, God blesses us as well. He gives us His peace.

Promise 32 from Numbers 24:4-7

Numbers 24:4-7 - "The oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down, yet having his eyes uncovered.  How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings O Israel! 'Like valleys that stretch out, like gardens beside the river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters. Water will flow from his buckets, and his seed will be by many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and His Kingdom shall be exalted." - When looking a the promises of God in scripture, on needs to look at who the promise is for. God may not promise to one person what He promises to another. Even though Balaam is speaking over the Israeli camps, he begins with saying that oracle is for all who hear the word of the God and sees the vision of the Almighty. Balak was listening to the words of Balaam but he wasn't in tune to the vision of the Almighty. Therefore this blessing was not for him. So what is the blessing for those who hear and focus their eyes on the Lord? Your dwelling places are beautiful, overflowing with abundance, like valleys as far as the eyes can see, and beautiful gardens beside rivers of rushing, refreshing waters, like healing aloes planted by the Lord, Himself, and like strong cedars beside the water. There will be abundance of water, a symbol of life and refreshment, and your seed will be spread by the water, the symbol of multiplying growth and abundance. Your king, the One who is on your throne will be over all others and His Kingdom will be exalted, a promise of victory which is an eternal joy. This is what God promises His people. This is how God delights to bless His people.

Promise 31 from Numbers 24:1-2

Numbers 24:1-2 - "When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go as at other times to seek omens but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe; and the spirit of God came upon him." - Balaam had a personal encounter with God when his eyes were opened to that which pleases God. Prior to this mission that Balak asked him to go on, and God gave permission to go, even though intially he wasn't supposed to go, his job was to curse the enemies of those who paid him or to bless those who paid him. I really didn't believe he condsidered God too much, except to have an awareness of Him and maybe even a fear of Him. Even though he was not to go on this trip with Balak, God used this time to show Balaam what brings peleasure to God's heart. It was after he saw what pleases God, then the Spirit of God fell upon him.
Something I've experienced myself the last few years is, as soon as God reveals to me something new about Him, especially those things that bring Him pleasure, then I feel the Holy Spirit come upon me, which manifests in a variety of ways. It usually isn't the other way around, from my recent experience. God, Himself gives a fresh revelation using whatever means He chooses; scripture, a sermon, a talk with a friend, a song or even nature, then "Bam!" enter Holy Spirit on the scene. I could write a book on this whole topic, but just to bring clarification, because I know most of the conservative christian world would disagree with my statement thus far. When we have Christ in us, of course we have the Holy Spirit in us too. It is the work of the Spirit of God that opens our eyes to see the new revelations of God. This is what I call "the gentle Spirit within us. He does his job and we get it, we get what He is showing us and that revelation drops from our heads into our hearts, which springs up joy, peace, healing, whatever the case may be, then the "Gentle Holy Spirit" rises up and becomes a "party animal Holy Spirit" who begins to celebrate that we got it. At this point our little fleshly bodies can't handle all that Holy rumbling going on inside us and it starts doing uncontrollable things in response. Its like our soul and the party animal Spirit start to dance and the body doesn't know what to with it. So the body falls down, or shakes, or rocks or dances, laughs or cries or does flips or stand on its head. This is what happens when the joy hits our souls when we understand and respond to those things that please God, when we come into agreement to be pleased with those things that please God. The spiritual party begins and the Holy Spirit is the D.J.  Balaam explains his experience in vss. 3-4, "The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor, and the oracle of the man whose eye is opened; The oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down, yet having his eyes uncovered." The party began and he fell down at the revelation of the Almighty God. So what is the promise? God raises up the party animal Spirit within us when we come into agreement to be pleased with those things which please God.