Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

  The Grace of Problem Solving Numbers 36:5-7 a And Moses commanded the people of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying, “The tribe of the people of Joseph is right. This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophedad: ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father. The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another.”   Do you remember back in Numbers 27 when the daughters of Zelophedad came to Moses and asked for their father’s inheritance? Remember how wonderful it was when Moses brought the request before the LORD and the LORD said, “The women are right”? Well, now the plot thickens. Now there’s a kink in the hose as it were. Now, men from the tribe of Joseph suddenly realize that if these daughters marry men from other tribes, then their families will have double the inheritance of everyone else, effectively making them preeminent in the commonweal...

  Make Me a Sanctuary Numbers 35:34 b “… I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”   The Shepherd’s Church, which my dad founded thirty-seven years ago, sits right in the hub of Cary, North Carolina, on the outskirts of Raleigh, between the two intersecting thoroughfares of Tryon Road and Holly Springs Road. The side facing Tryon has a lovely grass lawn, divided into four full soccer fields, and I’m currently sitting on a lawn chair on one of those fields, looking out across the parking lot full of cars. Though it’s a Tuesday afternoon and not a Sunday morning, the church is brimming with movement. Parents are coming out the doors now, with kindergartners in tote, some headed to the playground to swing, and others, I’m sure, headed back home. Landscape crews are moving about the premises in typical fashion. Staff members are taking a break for a stroll around the quad. Seminary students are headed inside with their backpacks to study in the library. And the dista...

  Sabbath Psalm   (From Fanny Crosby’s hymn ‘Blessed Assurance’)   Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit—washed in His blood.   Perfect submission, perfect delight! Visions of rapture now burst on my sight! Angels descending, bring from above, Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.   Perfect salvation—all is at rest! I in my Savior am happy and blessed! Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness—lost in His love!   This is my story!  This is my song! Praising my Savior All the day long!

  Spiritual Scars Numbers 35:33 “You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.”   Man can’t thunder over the uncultivated landscape of the future the words, “Let it be,” and cause his ambitions to find fruition. He can’t conform the mysterious forces of Providence to align with his mental projections. His God-infused power of thought and will are not so divine as that, which is why the psalmist utters in exasperation, “What is man that You are mindful of him?” It’s only when we recognize that we are nothing on our own will and have nothing of our own making that we’re able to learn better who we are. Nevertheless, while the rampant pseudo-spiritualists and hyper humanists need a reality check against their egotistical mysticism, we saints could do with a bit more recognition of the power that our thoughts, words, and deeds rea...

  Better Judgment  Numbers 35:31-32 “Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest.”   A crucial reason for the severity of God’s like-for-like punishment of murderers is expressed in the following verse, but even without that widened context the justness of this law resonates. Not because the penalty of death matches the crime of murder—a life for a life—but rather because the punishment here is juxtaposed explicitly against a payment of ransom. In other words, this Scripture doesn’t read, “You shall give no mercy to the murderer but only justice,” nor “You shall not let the murderer go free but shall kill him,” even if these are implicit in the text; instead, it reads, “You shall accept no ransom,” revealing how greed can corrupt justice if not kept ...

  Roll Call Numbers 34:18-28 “You shall take one chief from every tribe to divide the land for inheritance. These are the names of the men: … Caleb … Shemuel … Elidad … Bukki … Hanniel … Kemuel … Elizaphan … Paltiel … Ahihud … Pedahel.”   An encouraging message resounds through this list of ten names here in Numbers 34 and it’s this: a remnant is rising.   “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,” says our LORD in Isaiah 43:19, a promise that He fulfills every moment of every day. Almighty God is always doing a new thing: in our cities, in our local churches, in our outreach ministries, in our political systems, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our homes, and in our hearts. Even where the Kingdom is shrouded from view, like a little mustard seed growing underground, it’s still advancing. And because God, in unrivaled humility, sows and reaps through the weak but wil...

  Kingdom Rising Numbers 34:16-17 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “These are the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun.”   Way back in Genesis 12, hundreds of years before Numbers 34 takes place, God called a man named Abram and made a special vow: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation.” So Abram went, as the LORD commanded. Later on down the road, when Abram settled in the land of Canaan, God came again to him in Genesis 13, saying, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.” So Abram looked up with childlike eyes and believed. Still, later, God spoke again in Genesis 15, reiterating those former vows while adding to them: “I am the LORD Who brought you out from Ur o...

  A Tale of Two Pilgrims Numbers 33:55 “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.”   This is the critical dichotomy that distinguishes pilgrims who love God on the one side and those who love the world on the other. For pilgrims like Caleb, Moses, and Joshua, pilgrims who yearn after the face of God above all else, every little compromise in their walk, every addiction not destroyed, every bitter or envious thought not taken captive by contentment becomes a barb in his eyes that won’t go away without repentance. That’s why a saint stuck in drunkenness or pornography or greed or adultery or bitter envy is the saddest soul on the planet: like a sojourner stranded in a heap of barbed wire, unable to move without cutting himself further. He won’t lie there, bleeding out from the wounds, and laugh exub...

  Sabbath Psalm (Revised from Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘Depth of Mercy’)   Depth of Mercy! Can there be Mercy still reserved for me? Can my God His wrath forbear? Me, the chief of sinners, spare?   I have long withstood His grace, Long provoked Him to his face; Wouldn’t listen to His calls, Grieved Him by a thousand falls.   Oh my wretched soul, repent! Over every sin, lament! Every compromise, deplore! Mourn—then go and sin no more!    Here, for me, my Savior stands, Holding out His nail-pierced hands; In His wounds, I see—I feel— He forgives and loves me still!

  A Leprous Colony Numbers 33:50-52 And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, “… When you pass 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 figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places.”   This is God’s world—not man’s. Although the LORD has placed us in charge of the earth as stewards, crafting us in His image to build and invent and effectively dip our hands into the sandbox of matter’s mysteries and fashion something out of it, He didn’t endow us with these precious powers so that we could make of the world whatever we wished. He didn’t fashion us to live unto ourselves. And the fundamental difference between the humility of Creator God and the hubris of created man is that God, Who has no need of us, desires to build a Kingdom  with us , but man, who is dependent on God for every breath, desires to...

  Word Spreads Numbers 33:40 And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the people of Israel.   Word of the LORD has spread through Canaan faster than the feet of these pilgrims. The stories of His victories, of His marvels and miracles, of the pillar of Shekinah glory that protects Israel’s advance, of the tabernacle and that Ark of the Covenant that sets these pilgrims apart have already travelled through Canaanite hills and penetrated even the most fortified walls. These pilgrims can’t hear the murmurs with their human ears, but every step forward in the sands thunders and sends a shockwave through the environs of hell. Every pebble their foot touches on the forward march is a milestone. Every square foot of real estate Satan has marked as his domain, all the fortified cities and backwater towns, all the kings’ throne rooms, and the slave quarters are stirring with the sound of movement that distinguishes God’s ...

  Dry Seasons Pt. 2 Numbers 33:14 And they set out from Alush and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.   In the previous devotional, I commented on the fact that the stomach flu has been running its course through our house and that I was awaiting my turn. Well, lo and behold, as soon as I finished putting pen to paper on that devotional, I walked inside, shut myself in the hall bathroom, and proceeded to fulfill my New Year’s Resolution of losing ten pounds! Simply put, I’ve just got the wrong blood type against the norovirus. Last time I had it, I ended up at the doctor’s office almost needing an IV because I couldn’t hold down water for over 48 hours. While this time around wasn’t as bad in that regard—praise God—I genuinely haven’t felt so desperately thirsty as I felt from the onset of symptoms at 5 p.m. till I sipped some water at 10 a.m. the next morning. Water was all I could think about. But at some point during that sleepless night, a...

  Dry Seasons Numbers 33:9 & 14 And they set out from Marah and came to Elim; at Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there. … And they set out from Alush and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.   It’s been a rough month or so at our home due to stubborn illnesses that just won’t abate. What started as a 12-day respiratory virus turned into a week-long sinus infection, then passed the baton off to COVID, and then, insult to injury, my son came down with a four-day fever, which we’re now washing down with the worst virus of them all: the stomach flu. So far, it’s been passed from Micah to my wife to my daughter, which means that right now, as I sit to write this, my stomach’s churning at the thought that my turn’s coming. I feel so sluggish and tired and uninspired. Those summer hikes up White Top Mountain and cold swims in Elk Creek and football games with the neighborhood kids feel like a lifetim...

  For the Record Numbers 33:1-2 These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the LORD, and these are their stages according to their starting places.   A common idiom used frequently by pastors and authors regarding the necessity of enduring in faith goes like this: “It isn’t how you start the race that matters most, but how you end.” I’m sure you’ve spoken some variation of that biblical principle on many occasions. And it’s good to be reminded of that truth from time to time, especially in our seasons of faithlessness and prodigality, where we think our childhood prayer of ‘Jesus, come into my heart’ covers a lifetime of transgression, or where we spend our Monday-through-Friday lives advancing our own kingdoms, pursuing our own self-serving ambitions, yet point to our church membership card as some sort of...

  Sabbath Psalm (From Priscilla Owens’ hymn ‘Jesus Saves!’’)   We have heard the joyful sound— Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Spread the tidings all around— Jesus saves! Jesus saves!   Sail it on the rolling tide— Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Preach to sinners far and wide— Jesus saves! Jesus saves!   Sing above the battle strife— Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Through His death and endless life— Jesus saves! Jesus saves!   Give the winds a mighty voice— Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Let the nations now rejoice— Jesus saves! Jesus saves! 

  Monumental Letters Numbers 32:20 & 22b-23 So Moses said to them, “If you will do this, if you will take up arms to go before the LORD for the war, … then after that you shall return and be free of obligation to the LORD and to Israel, and this land shall be your possession before the LORD. But if you do not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.”   Every word of Moses’ response to these elders of Reuben and Gad is of tremendous importance, but the very first word is the one on which all the others hinge—if. Two meager letters in the English language that when put together have monumental ramifications. As children created in the image of our heavenly Father, redeemed by Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit, we’ve been given the most profound moral agency of all to choose right from wrong. While God’s unconditional faithfulness is the hinge of our everlasting reward, our choice to walk in His steps day by day will determin...

  A Second Impression Numbers 32:16-18 Then they came near to him and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. … We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance.”   How Moses’ fingers must loosen on his staff as he hears these words. How his furrowed brow, hovering like hurricane clouds over storm-filled eyes, must soften in an instant, as if the LORD Himself has just called out to the storm of his countenance, “Peace, be still!” Only a moment ago, Moses was certain that these men had come in bad faith. He knew for a fact that they’d intended not only to undermine God’s good will but also to dampen the optimism of the readied pilgrims. And that’s the thing about godly men: they don’t mind being wrong where God is glorified.    I think of the council of apostles and el...

  Fighting Words Numbers 32:6-7 & 14 But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the LORD has given them? … And behold, you have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the LORD against Israel!”   You can feel a Sinai-type storm brewing behind Moses’s reply to these Gadites and Reubenites, as if a dark cloud has descended over the landscape, turning what was just a pristine, clear blue sky into a foreboding one. You can hear the rumbling of heaven in Moses’s furrowed brow; you can see the lightening flashing in his gaze downward; you can feel his knuckles whitening around that trusty old staff, and the rocks under his feet bracing themselves for a strike, as if the earth might suddenly be torn apart with one blow of his wrath. ‘What treachery!’, Moses ...

  Either-Or Numbers 32:1 & 5b Now the people of Reuben and the people of Gad had a very great number of livestock. And they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for livestock. … And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.”   Part of the reason I’ve found it beneficial to go chapter by chapter through the books of Moses, attempting to engage with immediate conflicts in the narrative with a present-tense lens, is because that’s how our own lives of faith play out from day to day. We live in chapters, in seasons, in stages, in sentences and paragraphs that have one contextual heading, knowing that the very next chapter could read quite differently. Ten years from now, twenty years from now, the decisions we make today will either be validated as wise or proven as foolish. But therein lies the struggle: we can’t read the manual o...

  Striking Justice Numbers 31:15-17 Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came upon the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.”   How can the very LORD Who said, “Let the little children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” speak a word like this: “Kill every male among the little ones”? We expect that sort of command from a Herod or a Pharaoh or a Sennacherib, not from a merciful God.    Perhaps it helps to point out that a dialogue between God and Moses is missing in the text. That is, we aren’t  directly  told that God commands Moses to do this. This episode might be similar to when Moses came down from Sinai, saw the people adulterating before a false idol, and forced them to drink wate...

  Sabbath Psalm (From Lidie H. Edmund’s hymn ‘My Faith Has Found a Resting Place’)   My faith has found a resting place—not in device nor creed; I trust the Ever-living One—His wounds for me shall plead. Enough for me that Jesus saves—this ends my fear and doubt; A sinful soul I come to Him—He’ll never cast me out.   I need no other argument, I need no other plea; It is enough that Jesus died,  And that He died for me.   My heart is leaning on the Word—the written Word of God; Salvation by my Savior’s name—salvation thru His blood. My great Physician heals the sick—the lost He came to save; For me His precious blood He shed—for me His life He gave.   I need no other argument,  I need no other plea; It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me.

  The Fall of Balaam Numbers 31:7-8 They warred against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every male. They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.   It isn’t the fact that God Himself commanded this Midianite massacre that troubles me most, nor even that every husband and father in the land is killed, but rather it’s the sight of yet another promising, once stalwart saint biting the dust. Remember Balaam? He was the very Midianite prophet who spoke God’s truth even in the face of extravagant bribery from elites, but, evidently, as we learn in Numbers 31:16, he later counseled the Midianite women to commit idolatrous liaisons with Israeli men, which is a tragic stain on what could’ve been a pristine prophetic record.   Balaam’s introduction into the biblical narrative back in Numbers 22 was a breath of fresh air against the ba...

  Justice—A Double-Edged Sword Numbers 31:1-3 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” So Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute the LORD’s vengeance on Midian.”   Take Numbers 31:1-3 as a commission to arm yourselves for battle as well, friend. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” said our Lord, and you’ll need armaments of divine wisdom to make it through the trenches of this exegesis victoriously. The saint who breezes through the slain bodies of Midianites piled up behind the lines of Numbers 31 is not a carefree believer but a calloused one. It isn’t an easy task ahead. It doesn’t feel good to watch godly men execute men, women, and children at the command of the LORD. But is it  right ? That’s the pertinent question. Satan loves to hurl Scriptures like these at defenseless Christians and mock,...

  Spoken For Numbers 30:14 “But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges that are upon her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them.”   “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing,” John Stuart Mill once noted, and we’d blush to learn how many of the gravest, most inhumane atrocities in history have been rooted in the soil of a man’s silence. How much irreversible damage is done every day by men who keep their mouths shut instead of sticking their necks on the line? How many teenage girls are pregnant today in part because fathers refused to take them aside, put an arm around them, and warn them of the consequences of sexual promiscuity? How many churches have split into warring factions because a deacon or an elder refused to call out the gossiping members? How many young men have become addicted to pornography o...

  Divine Intervention Numbers 30:8 “But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And the LORD will forgive her.”   Had the wave of today’s radical justice warriors been living in this Mosaic commonwealth, there would’ve been an uprising over Numbers 30:8. The streets would’ve been flanked by picket signs, drowned in the marching of angry feminists decrying the misogyny of the patriarchy. To think that a woman might make an unwise vow in a frenzy of emotion and need a loving husband to bear responsibility for her and stand in her way is an outrage to our demented generation. Now, that said, as a highly emotional man myself, I, too, have been rescued on occasion by the loving intervention of my wife. For instance, I once ordered hundreds of copies of a brand-new children’s book I’d written, but when the books arrived from the printing hous...

  Promises Performed Numbers 30:1-2 Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, “This is what the LORD has commanded. If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”   There’s quite clearly a connection in God’s mind between being a man of  the Word  and being a man of  your  word. It’s a contradiction to say, on the one hand, that you take the Bible seriously, that you hang on the truth of every jot and tittle, while, on the other hand, you use your own words flippantly. Yes, God’s speech is more significant than ours by an infinite margin, because He’s a righteous Speaker at all times. But the medium of communication is still speech—still words—which means that only those who understand that the God-given power of language, the power to name and associate and encourage and exhort and condemn and promise, is...