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Numbers 13-14 | In the Wilderness

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Listen to this week’s sermon, In the Wilderness preached by Rev. Dr. Michael Allen from Numbers 13-14.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Gine Fickett:

Please join me in praying the prayer of illumination. Teach us your way, O Lord, that we may walk in your truth and find life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Today's scripture reading is taken from Numbers 13 and 14. At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land, and they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paren at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night, and all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt? Or would that we had died in the wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with a pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. But Moses said to the Lord, Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times, and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers, and none who despised me shall see it. When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned. But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies, for there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Horma. This is God's word.

Rev. Dr. Michael Allen:

Thanks be to God. Origin stories explain ongoing experience. We know this in different facets of life. Next year, our country, the United States, will hit the mark of 250 years since the signing of our Declaration of Independence. And many will turn to recall stories of its beginning to understand something of its experience today. As we think about pop culture, we live in an era where origin stories, whether of heroes and often also of villains, are crucial to understanding the full narrative, the full tale. Each of us in our families, we often turn back to consider olden times and origin stories of a birth, of a childhood, as a way to make sense ourselves and to give sense to others. And this is true also for Christianity. Origin stories shape ongoing experience. In the New Testament, the many stories of early Christians following Jesus take us in many different directions, but perhaps the most common struggle that was faced, that's described at length in the book of Acts, but is recounted through the majority of the New Testament texts, is a difficulty in understanding how following Jesus now, this side of his ascent to heaven, this side of the giving of his Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this side of the apostolic mission to the nations, is that Gentiles aren't called to become Jews. The church is now an international affair, scattered and sent out. And we no longer need to keep the law of Moses, to keep kosher, to be circumcised, and so forth. This is described in Acts 10 to 15. And this winds up then shaping much of the ongoing experience and struggle of the church. So much so that the first great troublemaker of the Christian church, in a very real sense, is a character named Marcion in the second century. And responding to and going much more radically beyond what we learn in Acts, Marcion suggests, far from Gentiles becoming Jews, the way of Jesus has nothing to do with the Jewish people or the Israelite scriptures. And so he slices and dices and shrinks the canon of Holy Scripture to just a few New Testament books, for they have nothing to do with all that God had done for Israel. Now, I suspect most of you have not heard of Marcion, and very few are his followers today, but there are subtle and easy ways to follow in that same ongoing temptation. How easy it is for us to pretend that the Bible begins in Matthew 1:1, that we can drop in simply and hear where Jesus comes from in Bethlehem without paying any attention to where Jesus comes from as described throughout the whole Old Testament. The Apostle Paul prepares us to face this kind of temptation and thinking. Writing to a younger preacher named Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3, he says, all of Scripture is breathed out of God. It's useful for teaching and reproof, for correction and training us up in righteousness, that the man or woman of God may be equipped for every good work. All of Scripture, old as well as new, useful that we would be equipped for all the good works before us, not just some or a few. Perhaps, like me, you sometimes have to pack a bag for a trip. There are few feelings in life more frustrating than having arrived, knowing you have aimed to prepare, you've packed with thoughtfulness, and opening that bag up and realizing that the one thing that was so important, the one unique resource that you knew you had to bring, somehow it's the one that's back well tucked away in your closet at home. And you're ready for many good things, you're prepared for all sorts of occasions, but you're under-equipped and ill-resourced for something of profound importance. God gives us all the resources. God grants all the equipping you need, brother and sister in Christ, and he provides it in the whole of his word. Now you may have thought, Ben was serious a few weeks ago, we've got a space and crowding problem, so we'll do the book of Numbers. You may have thought perhaps somebody lost a bet, and instead of getting to preach on Acts or Romans, here we are wandering through the wilderness of esoteric texts from antiquity. But we're here in Numbers precisely because all of Scripture is breathed out by God Himself. It's useful because God wants you and me to be equipped, not just for some circumstances and the occasional good work of love and witness, but every good work. And so because we want to be whole, because we want to be prepared, because we want to be resourced for all that God would have us for, we turn to numbers in these weeks. And today we turn to Numbers 13 and 14, the longest passage we've considered thus far. And we've just had a recounting of certain snippets across the two chapters. The first thing we need to see is this is a story in three Acts. Three Acts. Act 1, chapter 13, verse 1, through chapter 14, verse 10. God of old had promised to give them this rich land, and now God says, send scouts for the time has come. And so they appoint 12 scouts to go, and they go for 40 days, and they return and they offer two reports. The majority report of 10 says, Well, God wasn't lying. It is a good land, it's rich, it's remarkable, in fact. But God also was selective in what he said. He didn't tell us there are large people dwelling there and they've got fortified cities. If we were to go and attack, it would not go well for us. Two, Joshua and Caleb, a minority report, they argue the land is good, the occupants are large, the cities are fortified, but God has said, God has said he will give it to us, so we should go. The majority say, if we go, our young ones and our women will die. It would be better that we appoint another leader. It would be better that we would return to Egypt to slavery than for us to foolishly go following God's command to take the land. Joshua and Caleb plead once more, but the people respond, wanting to stone them. So ends Act one. Act two picks up there in chapter 14, verse 10. The Lord, the Lord comes in their midst in his glory, and he pronounces judgment. He is going to do away with them. He is going to begin again with Moses alone. And Moses intercedes. Your name is on them. They are your people. Your name is at hand. And God relents. God promises to show them favor. God offers pardon. Though God also insists on consequences. The people, in particular, the men who refuse to go and fight, so worried for their young ones who might have been slaughtered in the doing, those men will die. This generation will pass, and only the young ones who they were so worried about, only they will make it in years ahead into the promised land. And as for the ten spies, the majority who said this was not to be done, God's way was not to be followed, the task couldn't be accomplished, they die of a plague here and now. So ends Act 2. Act 3 begins in chapter 14, verse 39, and runs to the end of the chapter. Moses recounts the judgments of the Lord to the congregation of the people of Israel. The people respond. They groan and they declare their desire to go and to take the land now. Moses offers warning. I will not be there to lead. God will not go and bless this. Do not go. You will be slaughtered. But we're told that they presume to go and they attack abroad, and as predicted, they fall. Thus ends Act 3. Second thing we can see here, once we've gotten the basic shape of the story, is that there are two very different sins described here in chapters 13 and 14. And for all the drama, all the military, uh, all the geopolitical shape of the story, I suspect you and I can each identify with underlying elements of each of these sins. First, they've been told, God will give you this great land. If his delight in us is true, the peoples, no matter how imposing, are no threat. And yet, we can observe they despair. They hear the report, they observe the opposition, and they estimate that their chances are not good. They despair of success, they doubt the promise, and they refuse to do what God has told them to do. Fast forward to the end of the chapter, and here we have a very different problem, a very different error. We're told that hearing the judgment of God, receiving that word, they do groan, but they learn exactly the wrong lesson. They go presuming to win on their own. In pride, they march off when God has warned them he will not bless them. They act even though God has granted a stern warning that they ought to be patient. They ought to wait on the Lord and His command. They ought to patiently await His provision and blessing. Despair and doubt, presumption and pride. The ways in which we fail to do what we ought and we do what we shouldn't do can seem quite varied. They can even seem quite varied in a single day. And our response isn't to somehow say, they were terrible. Thank God. I don't do that. We read through scripture and we see this is an ongoing reality, not just an old problem from which we've somehow graduated. Think of John's account of the story of Jesus. As we read the account in John, we learn that Peter, not just a follower of Christ, but one of the closest disciples. Not just a leader of the early church, but perhaps the single most significant of the apostles, Peter. Not just on a random day, but on the day where Jesus has sat for one final time with his disciples, and he's instructed them on his departure soon to come, and he's shown them the practice of the Last Supper, and he's preparing them through words and prayer for a mission that will extend beyond his death and departure. On that night, consider the varied ways in which Peter struggles in sin. First, when Jesus says that he's to die, Peter rebukes him. And Jesus has to respond with an equal and serious rebuke. Peter wants to correct Almighty God, the incarnate Son, suggesting that his aims and plans are inappropriate. That takes some gusto. Then, when they're there at Gethsemane in prayer, Peter can't stay up. He repeatedly falls asleep. Jesus has to say, Come on, wake up, pray, join me. But Peter again and again with the others. He falls asleep, inactive, incapable of following through as he should. It's not over yet. The story continues, and the mob comes, and amazingly, apparently Peter is packing at a prayer party, but he pulls out a sword and he is ready one man to stop an entire mob from taking Jesus away. And Jesus has to rebuke him again. I'm meant to be given over, handed over into the hands of men. I'm meant to be delivered up for transgressions. And Jesus tells Peter to put the sword away, and Jesus puts the cutoff ear of Malchus back on, healing him. And he's taken by the mob. And the story continues. While Jesus is being tried and tested in the dark of night, Peter is being confronted once, twice, three times, eventually refusing to acknowledge before even a small child that he knows Jesus. Peter is all over the place. Sometimes rebuking the Lord and ready to fight the mob, sometimes incapable of obeying a simple call to prayer, or answering honestly, a simple question from a small child. Like the Israelites on that day, sometimes despairing and doubtful, other times presumptive and prideful, sometimes refusing to do what's very clearly called for, other times going on and pressing ahead in face of warnings and the call to patience. We see sin takes very different forms, and it can take very different forms within the course of a single person, day, and hour. But third, we see there's one faith being addressed here in this passage. And to understand that, you need to understand the center of this large, complicated story, and you need to understand how this story is at the center of this larger book of Numbers. Our passage itself says that there are ten different times where the people of Israel in the wilderness murmur or grumble against God. Clearly, an artful way of saying that the God who'd given ten words describing the way in which you're to love God and others and the Ten Commandments, his people have broken covenant an equivalent ten times. But Numbers actually only tells seven stories of sin. Just as the book of Genesis tells a seven-day story of how the whole world is made and ordered for God to be with his people, so Numbers describes the seven-step process by which covenant and communion with God, fellowship and enjoyment of him in all his glory and provision, it falls into disorder and chaos. And what was the most rich promise of life full and ongoing? It leads to death and to corruption. And it's crucial to see the seven different stories of sin and murmuring are told artfully, so that the first and the seventh are alike, the second and the sixth are alike, the third and the fifth are alike, and right here in the middle, we find the fourth and longest one that is like unto none other. So, for instance, in chapter 11 and chapter 21, they grumble over misfortune. Later in chapter 11 and in chapter 20, they grumble over food and water that's not good enough. In chapter 11 and 12, and in chapter 16 and 17, they will grumble, as we've already seen in the last two weeks, over leadership that they just aren't satisfied with. Here at the center and here alone, they grumble over the way God is calling for them to enjoy, to take, to have this promised land. This is the center of the book of Numbers. This is the clarifying center from which all else is made sense of. And that's not just an observation I make, that's an observation the Bible itself repeatedly makes. When you read ahead, and Lord willing, we will one day make it to Deuteronomy, my friends. And when we get there in Deuteronomy 1, Moses is recounting the story of God's people thus far. And when he tells the story of the wandering Israelites in the wilderness, the key episode he turns to in chapter 1, verse 32, is this story. And the key issue is this. He says, In spite of this God's word, you did not believe the Lord your God. And it's not just Moses. If you read ahead to the New Testament, you'll find the epistle to the Hebrews recounts in chapters three and four this whole episode of the generation wandering through the wilderness. And the adults, those who should have known better, who should have remembered God's faithfulness, his glorious works in bringing them from death in Egypt and promising them life in the land, they fell. And why did they fall? Hebrews 3 concludes in verse 18 saying, they were not able to enter because of unbelief. After it quotes this passage. Deuteronomy 1 and Hebrews 3 both say the key issue in this story and the key to all of the wandering in the wilderness is the challenge of belief or unbelief. Will we believe God? The symptoms of unbelief can vary, but unbelief nonetheless is always the corrupting call that leads us away from the path of God. As Dennis Olson says, whether in pride or in despair, the old wilderness generation failed to learn the fundamental lesson of the first commandment to fear love and trust God above anything and everything else. We read in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul speaking to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 1 20, all the promises of God are yes in Christ. A remarkable reminder that Jesus is the one who fulfills this and that promise of God. And it's a rich reminder that He's good for all occasions and circumstances. Sometimes we do find ourselves in a circumstance where we look about and we see the call of God and we think, it doesn't look most promising. The odds don't seem to be in our favor. I consider my wisdom and strength, I consider my know-how and resources, and frankly, I feel a little out of my depths. We can struggle with despair and doubt if we refuse to take God, God's character, God's track record, God's promises, God's hope on offer to us in the gospel into account. On other occasions, we can look at the wider world and like those Israelites in Numbers 14. We can think that God's prompt and rebuke is apparently I'm better than I thought I was. I had thought I wouldn't fare that well in battle, but God is rebuking me for not going. It must be that I'm actually stronger than I'd originally thought. It must be that I've got a more strategic mind, and therefore I'm gonna go. And every warning aside, and all of God's calls to be patient and to wait, forsaken, I am going to make it happen. I am gonna do this for God. I'm gonna do this, if I'm honest, in my own way, my own timing, and my own strength. Whether it's despair and doubt leaving you on the couch, or it's presumption and pride pressing you to frantically go do something and change things. The key here is what we find in chapter 14, verse 11. God's response and rebuke is not your self-esteem was too low. God's correction is not actually your greater or lesser than you thought. It's not about us at all. His rebuke is simple. Verse 11 says, How long will they not believe in me? Otherwise put, how often will they fail to remember who I am and all that I've promised and all that it involves for every area of life? Think of the way in which they might struggle. We often struggle. We consider the church, we consider the gospel, we think of ways in which we know our sins, and others so often know our sins. How will they believe us? We know we don't have every answer. We know we don't always have the most compelling voice. What will they find attractive? Moses himself raised those questions in Exodus 3 and 4 when God called him and told him to go and to speak to Pharaoh, the mightiest man in all the world. The later prophets, they too raised questions. I'm too young, or I don't know how to speak, or how on earth will this have effect? And time and again, God would reveal to the prophet that God brings life where none can be expected. Just like God with these Israelites had brought life where none could have been expected, taking a small group of slaves, completely overwhelmed and utterly at the whim of the mightiest people in the world, the Egyptians. And God, in display upon display of power and of goodness, of his might and of his grace, has shown his capacity to humble even the mightiest man in all the world, and to lift up even the most abject suffering of those without any power to help themselves. But we can forget. We can fail to remember. We can believe that today is different. God did great things then, or God blessed them over there, or God had promises for that circumstance. But here and now it's up to me. Today and in this circumstance, the baton is in my hand. And we can sometimes arrogantly press ahead, feeling that we know what we're doing, just as we can sometimes struggle to get out of bed because we know the disappointment and shame of having failed one too many times. And this passage in God's rebuke, how long will they not remember the wondrous deeds I did? How long will they not believe in me? Is a profound reminder that wherever we find ourselves, whomever we face and whatever we think we ourselves are, we are never the most interesting person in the room. God is there and God's promises have gone before us. As we bring this to a close, we ought to talk about Costco. I don't know what Costco is to you. There are many options. I have teenage males in the house. Costco is a reasonably cheap way to buy food in bulk and to make. It through these high metabolism years. For others, it's a pretty straightforward way to prepare for a dystopian future where you need to hoard en masse and be ready for whatever circumstance. Some of you are cheap, but you like a party, so it's a place you can go and they will serve hors d'oeuvres and let you mingle. Some love a bargain. It's below market gas, and you can get the propane tank filled for like half the cost of anywhere else. And while you're doing all that, of course, you can have your hot dog and drink for under two bucks. And somehow they've designed a way that one slice of pizza can get you a thousand calories before you're done. Costco is many things to many people. A membership card gets you access to all of those and I'm sure many other things. We all have our favorite, really strange thing you need to buy in bulk. But imagine, imagine if you met someone and and they really thought that Costco was simply a membership to go to a hot dog cart. Now that's good. Hot dogs, they're great at times. It's a meal. You're not gonna leave, you know, needing a nap. It's not so big that somehow you're not gonna be able to get on with your day, and it's a bargain. That's wonderful. But how many things you would miss if knowing they serve cheap hot dogs as you walk out the door, how many things you would fail to enjoy? How many other elements and needs of life would you be under-resourced and ill-equipped for because all you thought of your membership benefits was cheap hot dogs at the counter over there? Now, to squander the full range of benefits that a member gets at a place like Costco is not the most grave thing in life. God has laid out for you and for me so many benefits. God has in his word provided not just a meal for a moment, but a grace for all of life. And so we keep turning to numbers and we keep reading of these stories so that hopefully learning from those men and women, adults and children who've gone before us, we will learn to remember and not to forget. We will learn not to look first at ourselves, our strengths, or our obvious weaknesses, but to God and all his many promises. We will look not to our opposition and challenge, to our struggle and its difficulties, though they're great, but we will look to the one who has worked wonders in Egypt and brought life where none could be expected. And so we want to look at this passage that we might remember and not forget. We want to hear these words prayerfully, that we might meet all the circumstances of life armed with all the promises of God. What a gift it is to know they're yes in Christ, that He fulfills every single one of them and His word is good. What a sad travesty it would be if we didn't then explore what those promises are. So as we consider this passage, as we consider the table we're about to be invited to by God Himself, prepared by Jesus Himself for no one but you, dear Christian, his people, the ones upon whom his delight rests. Let's consider those who've gone before us, let's consider the apostles who've gone before us, let's consider the days that we ourselves have experienced in the past. And let's pray by his grace that we might remember anew, that we might delight in his promise, not in our strength, or wallow in our weakness, that we might walk well by faith. Would you pray with me? God, you alone are the God of life. You alone work wonders, giving life where none could be expected. We confess so often we look around us and we see grave difficulties. We look within us and we see a war that seems incessant and intractable. Help us to look at without. Help us to look to you to remember the wondrous works that you have done on our behalf. Help us to look in your word to the ways in which you, Lord, and you alone have promised a way, a way to life abundant, a way to life eternal. We rejoice in Jesus as the yes and the amen to all your promises. Help us to know and delight in each and every one of them, for it's in his name we pray. Amen.