As you can see from your handout, we're calling this message, The Life Outside of Christ's Gospel. And as far as for an historical explanation of the text, I might have to go back a little bit for you just to remind you. Now the tribe of Reuben, Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob. Who is Jacob? Or Israel? We might have to unwind from that. Chapter 1 brought to us, I think it was in verse 26 or so, that after Noah with the flood, he had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. or Yefet, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but Shem's line, which is recorded in Genesis chapter 10, towards the end, Shem's line follows. 10 generations, Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, Everest, and Eber had a son named Peleg, and Peleg had a son named Ru, and Ru had a son named Sarug, and Sarug had a son named Nechor, and Nechor had a son named Terah, and Terah had three sons, Avram, Nechor, and Haran. And Avram became Abraham, God changed his name to Abraham. And Abraham, so Abraham's the 10th generation from Noah, following Shem's line. And Abraham had a son, Ishmael, through Hagar. And he then, but the son of promise was Yitzhak or Isaac. Isaac was the son of Abraham. And then after his wife, Sarah died, then he had six other sons with Keturah. The line follows, Isaac, and he has a son, he has actually two sons, Esau, who was renamed Edom, and then another son, Jacob, who God named Israel. And Israel had 12 sons, and his sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, from his wife Leah, which is recorded in Genesis chapter 29. And then Rachel is, the woman that Jacob really loved. He served seven years for Rachel, but Laban, his father-in-law, kind of tricked him. You know, they go into tents, and so he couldn't see who it was. And so when he gets married, after seven years of labor, he thinks he has Rachel as a wife, but he has Leah. And his father says, okay, finish the week out, the honeymoon period, finish the week out with Leah and work for me for seven more years and you'll get Rachel after the week's out. So a week is over with the honeymoon and he gets Rachel as his wife, but he has to now, is obligated for seven more years to work for his father-in-law. So he's working for 14 years. He works for 20 years and he has sons through them. So he has four sons through Leah. Then he, Rachel says, I don't have any sons. So she says, take my handmaiden Bilhah and have sons for me through her. which Bilhah and Silpah were given as maidservants to Leah and Rachel, probably their younger sisters. So through Bilhah, the handmaiden of Rachel, there is Dan and Naphtali, they're born. And so that's in Genesis chapter 30, verses six and eight. Now, Leah says not to be outdone, look, now here's my maidservant, handmaiden, Zilpah, you go and have some children for me through them. And so Zilpah has Gad and Asher, and that's in Genesis 30 verses 11 and 13. And then Leah has two more children because, well, Reuben picks some flowers, some mandrakes, and Rachel says, oh, look at those, I want those flowers, so. So she says, let me be with our husband and you can have those flowers. So she ends up having two children as a result of that deal. And she names one Issachar, which means reward, because that was a reward for the flowers. And then Zebulun, she says, well, now my husband will dwell with me because I've given him all these children. And that was in Genesis 30 verses 18 to 20. And in the meantime, she has one more child, which is a daughter named Dina or Dinah in English. But Dina was the daughter that was born to Leah. And then finally the Lord opens up Rachel's womb and she has a son named Joseph. Well, she names him Yosef, which means then God will add to me another son because he's already given me one. And so she does have another son, finally the last son, which makes up 12, but Rachel dies in childbirth. And her last utterance is, this child is born, it's a male child, and she says, she names him the son of my sorrow, Benoni. Ben meaning son, oni meaning sorrow. This is the son of my sorrow because she, you know, she labored to give this child birth and then she dies, Benoni. But Jacob, whose name was Israel now, he changes the son's name to Benjamin, son of my right hand. And so that's the history of these sons. They're kind of placed out of order because last week we looked at Judah, which is the fourth son, and Simeon, the second son, and their genealogies. Now we're at these three sons, Reuben, Gad and Manasseh. And Manasseh comes from Joseph. Many of you know the story of Joseph. The brothers were jealous. They sold him to the Israelites who went by. They were cousins, relatives. So they sold Joseph to the Midianites who came by. They were closest. By the time they thought, well, we need to sell our brother. So they sold him to the Midianites. The Midianites sold him to the Ishmaelites. The Ishmaelites sold him in the bondage in Egypt. And at 17 years old, he spends 13 years in prison and then is raised up as the leader in Egypt during the famine. Well, he has two sons, Manasseh and Ishmael. Ephraim. He names the one Manasseh, which means forgetfulness, because I've forgotten all the trouble that I had in my father's house, and that the Lord has made me the second ruler in Egypt. So he names the other one Ephraim, which means fruitfulness. There you go. Now the microphone dropped. Now you're caught up. Now you're caught up. So now Reuben, in verses one through 10 of our chapter, these are the descendants of Reuben who lost his birthright because he actually went into one of the handmaidens and had an intimate relationship there, but they were his father's wives and he's not supposed to do that. So when the children of Israel, were down in Egypt and they were in bondage and the Lord delivered them. And everyone knows the story like in the movie, The Ten Commandments from Charlton Heston. Well, actually it was Moses. Moses led them out of Egypt and they're wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. And as they come into the promised land, the land promised to Abraham to cross over into the Jordan River, Reuben says, I like this land that's over here on the east. This looks pretty nice to me over in the Jordan Valley. And then Gad, you know, stands up in Numbers 32 and says, I like this land too, I wanna live over here, instead of crossing over into the Jordan. And he says, Moses says, well, you need to fight with your brothers. Well, we'll go over and fight, but we want this land over here. We don't wanna go into the possession. And Manassas, half the tribe of Manassas says, we like this land too, if you're gonna give it to those guys. We want it as well. And that takes place for Reuben and Gad in Numbers chapter 32. And then it's given to them when Joshua, because Moses dies, Joshua leads them into the land. All the two and a half tribes go over. They fight for 13 years and then they come back. They left their families. We're gonna settle in this land. And we see the conquering and the division of it in Joshua chapter 13 verses 15 through 28. And so in the chapter, we see Reuben and Gad from verses one through 17. Then it speaks of tribal wars in verses 18 to 22 with the Hagarites. Now since, Abraham had a son who was named Ishmael through Hagar, an Egyptian. They're not only known as the Ishmaelites, they're known as the Hagarites. So that's where that comes from. And so the half tribe of Manasseh, Joseph's son, his eldest son, verses 23 and 24 shows some genealogy. But there's troubled, the troubled end for both of the, two and a half tribes, we see the idolatry and the captivity by the Assyrian kings in verses 25 and 26. Again, I'll read it again. But they broke faith with the God of their fathers and whored after the gods of the peoples of the land. whom God had destroyed before them. In verse 26, the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Paul, king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and he took them into exile, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Hala Havor, Hara, and the river Gozen to this day. The first part of verse 25, and they transgressed against the God of their fathers is how the old King James version puts it. They use the word v'yumelu. It means they acted treacherously. They basically committed treason against God. They saw the land that they liked. They went in, but they weren't mindful of the troubles that they would encounter there. This was a land of people that didn't like them in the first place, the Ammonites and the Moabites, which were distant cousins of them, which we'll get into in a minute. 1 John 2 and verse 16 says, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world. And so when we look at things that are, sometimes we see things in this life that are somewhat appealing, that our flesh desires. Shiny new car, better job. It might not be the best place for us. And so we see some of the things that happen to these two and a half tribes on the east side of the Jordan River in that lush valley that looks so good to them, rather than crossing into the land of the Canaanites and fighting these wars. There's the apostasy that happens, and that also is something that is reflected in the New Testament among the church. This apostasy, Revelation 2, verse four, there was a church called Ephesus that was very doctrinally minded. They knew the truths of the word of God. But the Lord says this, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned your first love. You left your first love. The second part of, Verse 25, in the Old King James Version, it says, and they went a-whoring after the gods of the people of the land whom God destroyed before them. Well, it uses the word there. It uses a root word, zina, which can be used of adultery. They were committing spiritual idolatry. It's used for harlotry, it's used for sexual immorality, but spiritually speaking, this was the next step. They were committing idolatry. Remember that idolatry is the root of all sins. And even spiritual adultery, perverse, kind of religion that comes forth from this. Rather than serving the God that brought them to this place and had given them to this place, they'd given themselves over unto other gods. And even we see this is true of any sinner to this day. In the book of Revelation, again, there was a church that was mentioned, Thyatira. that in Revelation 2 and verse 20, But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and is teaching and seducing My servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Now, what was probably going on was that they were taking wives of the women that were there, that were idolatrous. They were worshiping idols. And instead of bringing those idol worshipers into the worship of Jehovah God, Jehovah Elohim, instead of worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they end up the the men ended up worshiping the gods of the wives they were marrying. And so that's why I think that the wording was correct in both the English Standard and the King James Version, rather than using just adultery, they were using the whoring after, because it included the idolatry, but it also, because of the apostasy, they'd kind of let God go off to the wayside, and then they put into practice in both the physical realm and in the spiritual realm, idolatry. And that led eventually to their captivity in verse 26 where they were carried off to the same places that Solmaneser, king of Assyria, took the northern empire. Remember that after, when we were in 2 Kings, that after Solomon was, after his death, Solomon the son of David, as king of Israel, that the kingdom split in the northern and southern kingdoms. And so the northern kingdom ended up being taken away in 726 BC, somewhere in 700 BC. I can't even remember the correct date right now. They were taken by Salman Esser, king of Assyria. He took the northern kingdom captive, and that was recorded in 2 Kings 17. 2 Kings 17 verse 6 were the very same places that these tribes on the east side of the Jordan were taken. Now, as far as for an application to our text, what is this saying to us as children of God, as people who are saved? I want to give you an illustration of someone else years before. He was the nephew of Abraham. And some of you might, it might sound familiar to you because I wrote a devotional concerning this some days ago from Genesis chapter 19 when I sent it out on my email devotionals. But Lot's wife, Lot's wife, Lot's life is a warning to God's people concerned in this because Lot was a righteous man. Lot was the nephew of Abram when Abram was promised this land that the people would go into. But they had a dispute. And you know, the Bible calls Lot, even though Lot had his problems, the Bible outright calls Lot a righteous man, a just man. 2 Peter 2 verse 7. And though he has his faults, just like we all do, some people might even, there might be a person somewhere on this planet that says, hey, Brother John's kind of a righteous dude. I haven't met that person, but. because I have my faults. I wouldn't call myself that except that the righteousness of Christ is applied to me. I'm a wretched sinner saved by God's grace. But nevertheless, it's a pity that so many of God's people cling to the things of this wicked world. And when strife arises between Lot and his uncle, Abram, At the time, it was Abram in Genesis chapter 13. And the servants of Lot, he had plenty of herds of cattle and so forth. He had plenty of those things. So did Abram. But their servants were disputing with one another. And rather than going to this man of faith whom God is speaking to, a prophet of God, Lot says, Lot just says well, I'll take off because Abram says well you choose where you'd like to go and I'll go in the opposite direction And he looks down to the Jordan Valley and across the River Jordan and says look how lush that is over by Sodom I'm gonna take that place The lust of the flesh and the lust of his eyes, as we see in 1 John 2, verse 16, it was an alluring temptation for Lot. And as a result of this one decision, Lot was caught up and captured in a war. in Genesis chapter 14, that Abraham had to come with his trained servants, 318 men, and had to, I might've got the number wrong, but it's 300 and something men, and along with Aner and Eshkol, who dwelt with him around the plains of Mamre, and they went in and they took over and messed with those kings, didn't take a single thing from the captivity, and then brought them all back, and uh... Lot lost all his herds, all his cattle, and he ends up living in this place called Sodom, where the men are so evil that God is going to destroy it. Abraham begs about, you know, he says, would you destroy it if there are 50 righteous people there? And he keeps on going, 45? Then he keeps on going lower, 30, 20. If there's 10 righteous people, would you keep from destroying this place? He says, we'll do it for 10. There wasn't 10 righteous people there. So bad were they that when the angels went, many of you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. When the angels, two angels went, they were accompanying the Lord Jesus when they were talking with Abram in that portion of Genesis, Genesis 18. And that is a, the Lord Jesus, it was a Christophany. Okay, Tegan, what's a Christophany? Appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. I love our young people. They're so sharp, so astute. There you are. There's an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament and it was with two angels because they were called men, but... because they appeared like men, but the Bible calls them angels also in Genesis chapter 19. And so they go in and they stand in the square, Lot says, come on in, there's wicked men here. And they said, no, we'll stay out here. So he convinces them to come on in, but the men had seen the angels, these corrupt men, they wanted to have their way with them. Lot is being warned that you need to flee because this place is gonna be destroyed by God. So he tries to convince his sons-in-law that are married to his, he has a couple married daughters, we don't know how many, it's just plural. And he says, look, the Lord's gonna destroy this place. And they just thought he was kidding with them. They mock him. Which sometimes happens to us when we make wrong decisions and we say, look, the Lord Jesus is coming. You guys have been saying that for forever. So that same thing was going on with him. And so Lot tries to flee. He tries to flee. He's told to flee to the hills. But instead of fleeing to the hills, he says, can I just go to this little town that's right over here? It looks so nice. Zohar. And they said, alright, but just flee and don't look back. And then he loses, he comes with two unmarried daughters that are following him, and he loses one of the most precious and one of the most blessed testimonies of his life, his wife. As we know, a wife for a man stands for the Gospel. It was ordained in the beginning because it's a picture of Christ to His beloved bride, the church. And because she's influenced by this wicked town, when she's running away, she turns around and she becomes a pillar of salt because her heart was still drawn to this wicked place and a pillar of salt. means that there would be nothing left of her, because the beasts of the world would come and lick her away, and also time and weather and circumstance would just erode till there's nothing left of that Gospel testimony of husband and wife. Because the wife is gone, out of the picture. And the only record of her is written within Scripture. And so, He ends up going down to this town of Zohar, but the next thing we know, he doesn't end up staying there. He ends up being in the place where he was told to go in the first place, the hills that he was told to flee to. And still his decision-making processes aren't in order. It's because his daughters, two unmarried daughters. Well, we need to raise up children for him so they get him drunk and lay with him. And from that, he sires the two people groups that end up being the worst idolaters on that side of the Jordan, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Lot's life shows some pretty wonderful things to us, lessons that judgment is coming, and there's no escape to it. And we should keep this in mind that Those things can happen to the very best of us. We might be righteous, but this can happen to us. And because of this corruption still remaining in mortal flesh, that God's judgment reminds us that nothing will remain except for communion, the communion that we have with God in Christ by his grace through faith. And so there is a lesson right there for us, that the same thing that was going on with Reuben Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, the apostasy, the idolatry, and then the captivity. Lot, as a righteous man, was still captive to the things of the world. It had a foothold in his life and it shouldn't have it. in our lives because those things won't remain. The only thing that will remain when the Lord Jesus comes is our communion with Him. The things that we have loved and cherish that come from Him and become a part of our lives. The fellowship we have with Him and understanding who He is. Now, there's an illustration for hell-bound sinners. It's basically the thing that happened with Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manassas, that they fell into apostasy, idolatry, and then finally into full captivity. Apostasy to idolatry to full captivity. And what that means for someone who isn't in Christ, it means that they have eternity for the sins that they've committed against God. We see what's best for now leads to apostasy. God really isn't as important to me as the way that they looked at it. Though it doesn't say so outright in the scripture for their circumstances, the New Testament bears this out. setting Christ and His gospel aside, and then absorbing the cares of the world will lead to idolatry. And Jesus tells a parable of this, that the cares of the world, it's like the seed of the Word of God, what Christ gives unto us as far as for blessing, and it falls upon our hearts, but then the cares of the world. He tells this parable in Matthew 13. It chokes the truth out of us, and then we go on living the way that we're living, and that leads to basically idolatry, and our young people know this, that idolatry is nothing more, it's the chief of sins, pride is self-idolatry, but idolatry is nothing more than saying that something, anything, is equal to or greater than the Lord Jesus Christ. And before you know it, you're consumed with the things of the world, which makes you captive to them. And there's this quote that I provided in your handout, in the middle of the handout, that says, and then Emmanuel answered, The whole is mine, not in name or word only. Wherefore, I will be the sole Lord and possessor of all or none at all in man's soul. That's from what we've been reading in the Holy War. John Bunyan wrote this of Immanuel, and Immanuel means God with us. Imanu, El. Imanu means with us and El means God. That's a term from Isaiah for one of the names of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the Messiah. God with us. And he says as there were compromises that were offered to him. Well, we'll give you the soul of man, this town called Mansoul. We'll give you the soul of man, but here we want to compromise in this way. And he says it's all or nothing at all. And this is what is reflected in Reuben Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh. But there's hope. Here's the hope, which though next week, we haven't gotten there yet, where it speaks of the tribes of Levi, which means joined. He was the priesthood, and he didn't get a portion in the land. And Levi was commissioned to have cities in the promised land, but because Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh were on the other side, God allowed for six cities total, three in the promised land, and three on the east side of the Jordan River. They were to minister there in the cities there and the three cities of refuge that there was a presence of God's people there was priests in Kadesh or Kadesh in the north and Shechem, or Shechem in the central part of Israel, and Hebron, Hebron in Hebrew, the third city in the south. But that was in the promised land, and then on the east side they had Golan, or Golan in the north, Ramoth, or Ramoth-Gilead in the middle, and Betzer in the south, three cities on the inwar-Rubin Gad and a half-tribe of Manasseh would be. There was a ministerial presence there of the Levites. And so with that presence there, with you here, young people who haven't given your life to the Lord Jesus, what does it mean? It means to trust in the Lord, in who He is and what He has done. I provided in the handout this thing, and even for you young people if you don't have the handout, Spurgeon preached a message from Isaiah. There was a quote of the week this week. And he says, what is the way? The way of salvation. The way to heaven. Jesus Christ says, I am the way. He is the Son of God and He left the glories of heaven and took upon Himself our nature and lived here. In due time, He took upon Himself our sin and made atonement for it. And now He has gone up into heaven. and sits at the right hand of God, even the Father, whence He will shortly come to judge the quick and the dead. The way to be delivered from sin, the way to heaven, is simply to trust in Jesus Christ. God has set Him forth to be a propitiation for sin. And whosoever believes in Jesus Christ has his sin put away at once, whatever he may have done, before Christ Went to heaven, He said to His disciples, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. This is the way of salvation which we preach, unaltered and unalterable. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." In other words, trust Him and you are saved. This is the entrance into the way of salvation, and this is the track of that way even to the end. Trust in Christ. Are not good works needed, says one? They always flow from faith in Christ. They that would be saved from sin trusts Christ, and His nature is changed. And so He hates the sin that once He loved, and endeavors to honor the Christ who saved Him. But in the matter of our salvation, the ground and bottom of it is not our works or tears or prayers, but simple reliance upon the finished work of Christ. He is the A and he is the Z in the alphabet of grace. He is the beginning and he is the ending. He that believeth in him hath everlasting life. He that believeth in him is not condemned and never shall be, for he is passed from death unto life. Such being the way, it is very simple. Straight as an arrow, is it not? And yet, in this way, there are stumbling blocks. And some of those stumbling blocks I just mentioned, they're compromises. Compromise is one of the stumbling blocks to Christ. Compromise gives birth to excuses. more than likely what Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had gone through, and being in that place where they were out amongst the idolaters. I'm not that bad, and I even do good, but Jesus said in Matthew 7, verses 21-23, Depart from Me. I never knew you." They did all kinds of wonderful works. They were pretty good people on the outside, but they had no relationship with Him. They didn't surrender. They didn't trust in Christ. They did mighty works in Christ's name. They cast out demons in His name. They preached His name. But Jesus said, I never knew you. Or, I'm not worthy. Well, this is the flesh rising up and the corruptions of our flesh, because this is the truth of it, beloved young people who haven't given their lives yet to Christ, I want to tell you. You might think, well, I'm not worthy. You know, I've done some things. You know what? None of us are worthy. I'm not worthy. None of us are worthy of it. This is why it's God's grace that if it was possible for us to do those things and get to heaven, then Jesus wouldn't have needed to come. God became a man and to walk the righteous life that you and I can't. No one is worthy. Well, I'll wait and see. I'll wait and see because some of these things are very tempting and alluring and our flesh rises up and I say, oh, there's some things I want to try out. There's some things I want to do. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. Our life is a mist, a vapor that appears for a little while and vanishes away. Spurgeon mentioned this, a simple reliance upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. Well, what does that work? That in becoming a man, Jesus Christ walked the righteous life that you and I can't. And then being righteous, he was the perfect sacrifice because our sins against the Holy God requires an enormous payment, a payment, a debt that you and I cannot possibly pay. So Jesus came and paid that debt, hung upon the cross, suffered God's wrath, And when He was accused, which we've been looking at on Sunday night in John 18 and John 19, He was silent before His accusers because He was taking our sins as if they were His. So He didn't defend Himself. He must go to the cross and die a death, suffer God's wrath most miserably, shed His blood, for the forgiveness of sins because a spear pierced his side and out from his side came water and blood and he rose from the dead showing that he truly was fully God and fully man and trusting in that that simple truth of the gospel trusting in who he was there and even as simplistically as I've mentioned it and trusting in that you will spend eternity with him because that's what heaven is. Him. The only recourse is life outside of Christ's gospel. You live for the here and now, for what you have. And I don't want that for you. The treasury and the treasure trove of the goodness of what is Christ, is so much more blessed than what we can ever imagine for the best things from this planet. These things will pass away. These things are fleeting. These things are temporary and temporal. But the things of Christ are eternal. And we only just get a glimpse of them now. For the rough and rowdy past that I've lived in my life, I wish I never spent a single day of the life that I had for 25 years before Christ, if it were possible, which it's not. And all those things made me to be what I am. But if I were able to have any kind of wish from the Lord, I would say, I didn't want any of that stuff because none of it was anything that was valuable for me. In fact, it was a detriment to me to live the kind of life that I lived before the Lord saved me. But the blessed thing about that is, this is a place where it says, well, I'm unworthy because look at the kind of life I lived. And most of you say, well, you've been a pastor for over 20 years and the Lord has saved you for over 36 years. How could you have lived a kind of life that you're even hinting at? I did, and worse than you can imagine. But this is the blessed thing, that in Jesus Christ, even though I kind of wish that that never happened, in Christ it never did, because He doesn't look at it. He only sees what He has for me, what He's done for me, and what He will do. He sees me as I'm the finished product. And He sees you, all you who are saved, as the finished product. That's the blessing of Christ. And all that stuff, all that wickedness that you've endured, all the shame or the guilt or the pain that you've suffered, those things are cleansed by the blessed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you live a perfect life? No. Even the people in the promised land, when they went on in there, they had wars to fight against giants because we're like grasshoppers in their sight. But in the Lord they were victorious and they took over that land and there are still battles to fight. But those things make you more like Christ and those things that you that the Lord brings you by in his grace and by his providence. So let's go before the Lord in prayer. Our most blessed and gracious Father in God, in Jesus' name, I thank you, Lord, for those that are able to hear the message today, and that for all those that are saved, the gospel message is a blessing to hear it again and again and again, because our flesh wants to say, well, it's nothing, when we know daily that it is something. As we see, it is more than something, it's everything. If we have not Jesus Christ, we have nothing. And we thank you, Lord, that the Lord Jesus Christ is all for us and all in all to us. And so we ask that it may be for those that haven't made a confession of faith today, that it may be that this is the day that salvation has not only come to the door, but has swung wide open the floodgates of salvation unto those whose hearts you have prepared to be with you. In Jesus' name and for his sake we thank you. Amen.