Well, let's take our copy of God's word this morning. We're turning to Numbers 27. Numbers 27. We'll read a couple of verses here just to get the flavor, and then we'll get straight into it here today. So Numbers 27, the verse number one, then came the daughters of Zelophehad. the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machair, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph. And these are the names of his daughters, Melah, Noah, Hoglah, and Melchah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses and before Eliezer the priest. and before the princes, and all the congregation by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah. but died in his own sin and had no sons. Why should the name of our Father be done away from among his family? Because he hath no son. Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our Father. And Moses brought their cause before the Lord. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, as we read thy word just now, We pray, Lord, you would bless your word. You would help us now as we take these few moments to contemplate the scriptures. Lord, help us to understand by word, Lord, more clearly. We're thankful, Lord, for what you've said in regards to how we view the wicked. We pray now you'll help us, Lord, as we view the righteous and that, Lord, we will be like them. We would emulate those who are godly and, Lord, ultimately help us to be like Christ. So be with us this morning. In the Savior's name we pray. Amen, and amen. In Numbers chapter 27, it's roughly about 1,400 BC. 1,400 years before Christ would come. That means that these women, these people, were nearer the first coming of Christ than we are. Moses and company were 1,400 years away. We, on the other hand, are 2,200 years away. You can see a difference there. And we're thinking here about this man, well, more about his family, actually. But in verse number one, we read of this man, Zelophehad. Now, Zophihad was a child who was born into the family of Manasseh. We read of that in verse number one, you have his family tree. And of course, Manasseh was the son of Joseph. So here's a man from the line of Joseph. And that's quite remarkable. Joseph didn't know that from his loins would come five remarkably godly women. Five women who knew the promises of the Lord and obtained the promises of the Lord. We read the names of those five women there at the end of verse number one. And you know, as we even start here today, I couldn't help but just feel how exciting that is for us all. We have no idea where our country will be in a few generations' time. We have no idea what will become of our children in generations to come. They may well be like Joseph's generations, who are godly, who do great things for God. I have no doubt. You know, when Joseph was in prison. and he was there in prison for doing no wrong, but surely he could not have thought for a moment of his descendants and what great exploits they would do in generations to come. He couldn't even imagine it. And you and I should look at this very positively and think, is it possible in generations to come from the loins of this person, this couple, there could be great godly champions for the faith? Maybe you don't have family as such. You can still take encouragement here to think about your own legacy and your witness and what you do and how that affects the generations to come. Listen, on the basis of this text, the future is bright and the future is good because the Lord can take the simplest of people and bring from them great servants and great workers for the Lord. So the future for us in this church is bright, men and women, it is. It is. So here you have these five godly women at the end of verse number one. Zelophehad had no sons, but he did have these five daughters that were far better to him than any son would ever be. And these five women were told in verses two, three, and four, they come before Moses and before the whole tribe of Israel, and they say, listen, Moses, there's no provision for us. Our father has passed away. He will not receive any land, and therefore we have no land. We need land. We need help. And I'm going to flesh out the problem a little bit more for you in a moment or two, but let me say from the outset here, this text can often be completely misused, misrepresented, and misunderstood. Let's be perfectly clear here this morning. This is not some kind of women's rights campaign. That's not a group of Old Testament feminists out to fight their corner. That is not what you have in this text. Here are five most likely young women, and they're godly, and they know the promises of God, and they know their God. And they base their behavior and their action upon the promises of God's Word. Let me just say from the outset here this morning, we have a God who doesn't favor either men or women. This is not some kind of religion that exalts men and demotes women. That is completely unbiblical. And let me take you to one verse that nails that daft argument on the head. Turn with me to the book of Galatians here please. Galatians chapter 3. Galatians 3 in the verse 28. Here's what the Lord says by inspiration through the apostle. there as neither Jew nor Greek. And you understand what that means. The Lord doesn't view somebody as a Jew, therefore they get special treatment. Someone who's Greek, they get different treatment. No. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And so the apostle here is dealing with the doctrine of salvation, because heresies had crept into Galatia. teaching things that were very much wrong, and so the apostle speaks here to make it very clear, listen, you might be born a Jew, or you might be born a Greek, or you might be born poor, or you might be born rich, you might be born a male, you might have been born a female, either way it's irrelevant. Because we are all sinners saved in Christ. And the point he's making is this. When the Lord hears prayer, it's not that men's prayers get answered in a fuller way and women get the, as it were, the last droppings, as it were. No, it's not that Jews get the big answers and Greeks get less. The Lord doesn't favor the rich and give less to the poor. No, everybody's the same. Male, female, rich, poor, Jew, Greek, no matter what age you are, no matter what skin color you are, when you come to the throne of God, when you stand before the judgment throne of God, all of that is completely irrelevant. And that's what we see in the word of God. It is an absolute fact. that wherever the gospel goes, women's rights have flourished. That's why women's rights have flourished in the UK for so long and in America, because these are nations that have been historically stepped, sorry, soaked in Christian theology. It's a fact. It's a good thing. I remember a wee while ago, It was a good while ago, actually, listening to an interviewer. He was standing outside a chapel, and he was interviewing people who were coming out, and the interviewer was asking, why do you pray to Mary? And one lady came out, and she said, well, I prefer to pray to Mary on Christ because, well, Mary's a woman, and I think she'll understand me better. And that statement, is absolute nonsense on so many different levels. I pray to Mary because she's a woman, she'll understand me better. Listen, Mary was a sinner. in need of a saviour. And Mary is very much limited in her understanding. I'm not here to degrade a child of God or a saint of God. I'm not doing that. Mary was a child of God. She's redeemed and washed by the blood of Christ, but she is not to be prayed to. She is not to be worshipped just because she's a woman. It's not that you have this woman's God and you have this male God in heaven. That's not what we have. We have one God. And after all, when you think about it, Mary was created. We pray to the Creator, who has infinite in His knowledge, infinite in His power. Let me tell you, Jesus Christ is every woman's best friend and best Savior and only Savior. Jesus Christ is every man's best Savior and best friend. That's a reality. He's the creator. We are the creatures. And we approach none but Him. So we're all one in Christ. We're thankful for that. The Bible makes it very clear, actually, when we think about women's rights and so on, that the man is to love the husband as Christ loved the church. That's Christian theology. That's not degrading. Likewise, the woman is to love the man. We are told in regards to young women, we are told there, as Paul told Timothy, treat the young women like your sister. What about the mature women? He said to Timothy, treat them like your mother. They're not objects for your pleasure. They are to be treated respectfully, and the best part is this, treat them like your sister, the young ones and the old ones, like your mother. That deals with it all. And so the Bible makes it very clear that there ought to be fairness and appropriate treatment of all human beings. I think in our context we have in Pakistan, Pakistan is an anti-Christian Islamic state. And how they oppress the poor, how they oppress women, how they oppress those of other religions. And when Christianity goes, it makes for a good nation, a good place for all to live. Let's get back to these women here in Numbers 27. We're following on from last week and what we were doing there. This is the Homeward Street, remember. They're coming near the promised land. And there's a few things to tie up before they go into the promised land. And here you have these five women. And what I want to do with you this morning is speak about these five remarkable women. First of all, their predicament. Secondly, the precedence. And then thirdly, the plan. So I want to show you their predicament here first of all. I've mentioned it to some degree already. Their father was Zelophehad. And he was dead. And that was a problem, you see. He was dead. And they had no brothers because their father had no sons. Now, why is that a problem? Well, I'll tell you why. Remember last week, we saw that there was a census taken. They counted the people. They numbered the people. And the people that were numbered were going to receive land. Now, who was numbered? Remember, everyone who was numbered is going to receive a portion of the promised land. And the people numbered were men of war. Not women. No women were counted. Because these were men of war. And they were the men who were going to take shield and sword and go and fight. They were the people numbered. And that worked out quite well. But not for this family. Because their father was dead. And they had no brothers. So they weren't counted. They were not going to receive an inheritance. And so Silothihad's family were going to receive nothing. Now these women, they didn't just sit down on the wall and complain. They didn't storm out and reject God. God has forgotten us, no. These women, we are told, they went and they spoke to Moses and they spoke to the congregation. Now that was a bold move. These women didn't chat about it, gossip about it. They went straight to Moses, straight to the people of God. And what's also, I think, striking is how clear they present the case with their father. They said in verse number three, listen, our father died in the wilderness. You understand what that means, don't you? He was one of the people who wouldn't go into the promised land. He was one of those thousands who failed to push in and receive the promises of God. But because their father died for his own sins, that doesn't mean they were going to just give up. He was a new generation of young women. who were going to walk with God, and they were going to secure their future with the people of God. There's conviction here. They could have said, right, well, we'll forget about you. We're going to go on the mobiles. We'll go to somebody else. We can get men in a different nation and settle down there and we'll be treated well. No, they said, no, we're going nowhere. We want to be with the people of God. We will not, we will not defect and go somewhere else. These were faithful, faithful God honoring women who were not ashamed. Well, they were ashamed of their father's sin, but not to the degree where they would try to bluff over it and tell lies. They acknowledged the realities. They could face up to the facts and move on. What's also interesting is, We're told they came to the door of the tabernacle, and that's very telling. Here's these five women, and they had a problem, and they go straight to the court of God. That's what's happening here. You see, they went to Moses and to the congregation at the tabernacle door, and what that means is they're bringing their burdens to the Lord in prayer. That's what they're doing. They're dealing with this right. They have confidence in God, and so they go to the Lord. Men and women, that's good counsel for us all. When problems arise and we don't know what to do and there seems to be no provision, we go and we pray and we look for the Lord's answer. That was their predicament. Look now at the precedence, because if you go to verse number five, we read here, and Moses brought their cause before the Lord. You understand what that means? It means Moses didn't know what to do. This never happened before. This was never a problem before. There was no precedence to give guidance. When I say precedence, that means there was a preceding event that would give guidance. Very often, you know, maybe you're in a session meeting or a mission board meeting or whatever, we often ask the question, well, what has preceded, what have we done before? What's happened in generations past? And that gives us some counsel, some guidance. But here, there's no precedence whatsoever. That's the problem. It's a first time problem. And how did Moses deal with it? Verse number 5. Moses went all red and he blushed and he fumbled through and he ignored them. He acknowledged the problem and he didn't have an answer, he didn't hide behind this. It's not wrong to say that we don't have all the answers. You would think now, you would think that Moses, 40 years, four decades of leading Israel, you would think this man would know just about everything that there is to know. He's been through it all. But he admits, I don't know what to do. We're gonna have to go and pray about it. That's a good leader. A humble man here. Don't be ashamed to not know. You see, there's a principle here, men and women. Christianity is not so much about what we know. It's about who we know. Moses didn't know what to do, but he knew who to go to. That's the key here. It's not about what we know. It's about who we know, the Lord. I was thinking about this just quickly, but there's lots of men in the Bible who didn't know what to do. Remember these five women, their great, great, great grandfather was called Joseph. And Joseph didn't know what to do when he went in search of his brothers. He went to, I think it was the place called Dathom. He went there to find his brethren and they weren't there. And we read in the Bible that he wandered in the field. He wandered in the field, he didn't make any decision. He just, he wandered, he thought about it, he waited on the Lord. And then we're told that this nameless man who in providence is a picture of the Holy Ghost, came and instructed him, and said, this is the way you go, go to Shechem. And he went, and he found his brothers. That didn't mean that everything worked out rosy and well, because that's where his brethren sold him into Egypt, but that was part of God's plan. But the point I'm making is, their forefather didn't know what to do. So he wandered around, he waited for the Lord to give leading and guiding. I think about, I won't turn to it, but you could turn to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 15, and we're told there about the apostles. There was a situation that had arisen in the church, and they didn't know what to do. So they met together, and Acts 15 is the first presbytery meeting. It's where all the elders and the apostles, they came together, the leaders of the church, to discuss the matter in Acts 15. And that's where they came to the conclusion. They sought for the Lord, the Lord gave them guidance, and they knew what to do. It was the right thing to do. So we don't always have the answer. By the way, that's how we form our presbytery. That's why Presbyterianism exists on the basis of that text in Acts 15. But anyway, when our presbytery and our Elders and ministers come together. But sometimes we don't know what to do. Don't be ashamed of that. Acknowledge that we don't know everything. But we know the Lord who gives guidance and who gives help. Perhaps I can say one other thing. There are unsaved people in the Bible. Again, the book of Acts. And they didn't know what to do. They came to the conclusion that we have sinned against the Lord. We have broken God's law. And they asked the question, men, brethren, what shall we do? And the response was given. You believe and you repent of your sin. Believe in the Lord, repent of your sin, and that's what you should do today if you're unsaved. Thirdly here, and finally, because I do want to be brief here this morning, and I'm endeavoring my best to do so, I want to show you the plan that God gave these women. So in Numbers 27, you have the problem, the predicament, you have The precedence, there was no precedence, but here you have the plan in verse number six. And verse number six onwards is fascinating. Read this. Does it sound like God is saying, oops, I made a mistake? Is that what it sounds like to you? Let's read it. Verse six. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, The daughters of Zelophehad speak right. They're right. There is no provision for them. Thou shalt surely give them a possession for inheritance among their father's brethren. Thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass on to them, and so on and so forth. And what you have in those following verses is a new statute that was never written down before. This is a massive change. And so the Lord says, they're right. The question, the problem that these women bring, it's correct. So what does that mean? Does that mean the Lord is acknowledging that he neglected the women? Is the Lord here acknowledging that he forgot to make provision for these ladies in the law of God? Obviously not. Obviously not. What we do see in this passage is this. The Lord doesn't tell us everything. We don't have answers for everything. There are what the Bible sometimes calls thorns. Problems that probe us and prick us and they annoy us. And we don't know what to do with them. And they frustrate us. But the Lord allows them to keep pricking and prodding at us. And these problems harass us. And we ask the question, well, why? I'll tell you why. Because the Lord isn't so much about making your life lovely and happy. The Lord is about you having fellowship with him. And very often, problems remain that we fellowship with the Lord, that we pray. And that's exactly what happened here. When this problem arose, what did Moses and the people do? Prayed. Fellowship. Dependent upon the Lord. The Lord's drawing them into a deeper dependence upon Him. And that's often why we're not told everything. That's often why problems remain. That we would draw nigh on to God and the Lord will draw nigh on to you. We are told to cast your burdens upon the Lord. 1 Peter 5, 7. You cast them on the Lord. Why? Because He careth for you. You bring them to the Lord. These women, in response, did receive an inheritance. This was unprecedented. This had never happened before. This was new. But these women were given a possession that's complex, well, not We'll not look at it right now, we'll not open it up, but to put it simply, they were told that you marry within your tribe, and that means the land that you give will stay with the tribe of Manasseh and not go outside the tribe. And all of that was very important because God had given an inheritance to each tribe, and they deserve to have that full inheritance. And if they married outside that tribe, that meant they would have lost their inheritance. And do let me say this, actually, these women, I've been told, without any apology here, that you have a select group of men to marry from. You can't marry anybody the Lord said to them. You have to marry someone from the tribe of Manasseh. That might feel a little bit limiting to them. Well, they might say, well, that really cuts down our choices. Our tribe tend to have big brows, and we don't like big brows. Our tribe tend to have small ears, and we don't like men with small ears. Whatever the case may be, they may be a little bit curtailed by that, but they didn't complain. They took the Lord's advice, they married, they stayed within their tribe, and they went on to be greatly blessed. But you know, there's a good thing there because the Lord was protecting them. If they were allowed to marry outside of their tribe, there could have been other rascals who thought, well, if we marry one of these five girls, look at the land that we'll get in Manasseh. And so we'll have an inheritance in our tribe, we'll have a wee bit more in that tribe, we can begin to expand. And you think in the word of God, the word of God makes it very clear that we should not be unequally yoked. And that might make either male or female feel a little bit curtailed. They might have a heart for someone who's not saved. But if you go after someone who's not saved, they will steal your heart from the Lord. Like these men could have stole the inheritance, what God had given these women, these men could come and steal it from them and leave them high and dry. That's what happens sometimes. The Lord said, you marry your own people, your own people who are believers and saved. And that will aid in the protection of the women of the man, that they will not steal your heart from the Lord. And so the Lord's restriction here is a great blessing for these women in their life and in their walk. And so I don't want to prolong this this morning. I simply want to get this point across that we often encounter predicaments, problems that arise, and there's no precedence. There's nothing that we can learn from in the past to help us. We're kind of bombarded with this new difficulty. What do we do? We look to the Lord for a plan. We look for the Lord to plan for us the way forward that's best and good. That may be very applicable to someone here this morning. You're going through circumstances. This is what you do. You look to the Lord. You come to the house of God. You pray with the people of God even about it. You seek the Lord that He would guide you. We may not have the answers, but we can pray to the one who does. And so we're thankful. Come what may be your problem, it might be like these women. It can be this and an inheritance to dwell or whatever. You take all your cares and burdens to the Lord. and He will receive and He will hear. Amen and amen.