What you Have Forsaken is Lost

"What you Have Forsaken is Lost" - 1 Chronicles 5:18-26 Reuben lost the birthright, but he was the firstborn, he violated his father's bed, his birthright was given to Joseph's sons. For this reason, Reuben was not counted as the firstborn. (1 Chronicles 5:1) (Genesis 49:4). Impetuous (violent and fast) because you will not be the main one. He went to his father's bedside, because you debased yourself (he acted with great wickedness, in a low and despicable way, vile, unworthy, of little value) that was Reuben, in what he left of inheritance and of his person, his knowledge of things.

I. Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh who settled in Transjordan (straight coming from Egypt is at the right).

A. Very little is said about them.

1. The inheritance that belonged to them at the beginning was Bashan alone (Israel's right before the Jordan River).

2. They then increased so much in "wealth" and "power" that they spread far north until they reached Hermon (north).

3. Two things are told here of these tribes on the other side of the Jordan, of which they all participated.

4. A glorious victory over the Hagrites (Arabs, Ishmaelites, Moors, descendants of Ishmael).

5. To remind them that they were the sons of the slave girl (Hagar) who was cast out. (10)

6. They gathered a formidable army of skilled and battle-hardened men (troops or soldiers); and there were forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty who went out to battle.

7. (20) They cried out to God in war and hoped in Him.

8. Despite having such a powerful army, they did not put their trust in the "numbers," bravery, or experience of their soldiers, but only in the power of God.

9. What is abandoned is lost.

10. In our "spiritual struggles" we are to look for "strength in Heaven."

11. The believer's prayer is the prevailing one (superior, notable, outstanding, prevailing = excelling, advantage, imposing or triumphing over another).

12. (20-22) Since the battle was "Jehovah's," they were bound to be "successful" in this war.

13. For the war was of God, (22) and many were killed.

14. The sons of the half-tribe of Manasseh (23) multiplied greatly.

15. They had more than the others in everything.

16. They were brave and hardworking men, men of name and heads of their fathers' houses, leadership, all the ability in the directives that they have to influence the way of being and acting of people or in a given war group making the army work with enthusiasm towards the achievement of their battles that they were the winners.

17. (25) Danger of rebelling against God.

18. They prostituted themselves following the gods of the peoples of the earth.

19. It's that easy, you leave God to worship the mundane; easier than to love God.

20. Those gods that Jehovah had taken away before them.

21. If they had become more attached to God, they would have continued to enjoy their inheritance and their conquests, "but they rebelled against the God of their fathers. (25)

22. It is easier to rebel than to be faithful.

23. What you have abandoned is lost.

24. Their borders faced idolatrous countries, and from them they learned idolatrous customs and transmitted the infection to other tribes.

25. These tribes were the first to be established and the first to be displaced from their heritage.

26. They wanted to possess the best of the country, without regard to the danger to which they were exposed; so, did Lot.

27. Those who are governed (directed) by the senses, rather than by reason and "faith" in their decisions, are to expect to receive according to what they have chosen.

28. They were among the first tribes to enter captivity.

29. They disappear because: The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of the Assyrians, and the spirit of Tiglath-Pileser, who carried the Reubenites, and Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and carried them to Halah, Habor, Harah, and the river Gozan, to this day.

30. Reuben's brave tribe, Gad, and Manasseh's half tribe disappeared. Amen