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Numbers 16 | In the Wilderness

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Listen to this week’s sermon, In the Wilderness preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from Numbers 16.

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.

Joshua Esquivel:

Please join me in reading the Prayer of Illumination. Almighty God, as we hear your word inspired word, teach us, reprove us, and train us in righteousness, that we may be equipped for every good work through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Our scripture today comes from Numbers 16. Now Korah, the son of Ezar, son of Kohath, son of Levi and Dathan and Biram, the sons of Eliab, and An the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men, and they rose up before Moses with a number of the people of Israel, two hundred and fifty chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, You have gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? When Moses heard it, he fell on his face and he said to Korah and all his company, In the morning, the Lord will show who is his and who is holy, and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him. Do this. Take censors, Korah and all his company, put fire in them and put incense on them before the Lord tomorrow. And the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the holy one. You have gone too far, sons of Levi. And Moses said to Korah, Hear now, you sons of Levi, is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them, and that he has brought you near him and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you? And would you seek the priesthood also? Therefore, it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together. What is Aaron that you grumble against him? And Moses sent to call Dathan and Biram, the sons of Eliab, and they said, We will not come up. Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? That you that you must also make yourself a prince over us. Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up. And Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed one of them. Then Horah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord appeared to the congregation, to all the congregation. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, Separate yourselves from among the con this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell on their faces and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation? And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Say to the congregation, get away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord. And as soon as he had finished speaking these words, the ground under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with all their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. This is God's word.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

They're all signature moves. They're all signature moves. And this morning, in our text, we're gonna see that God has some signature moves too. That in the story of Scripture, God shows up in predictable patterns where we can begin to count that this is the way that He's gonna move and act. And so I have one point and three subpoints. The one point is that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Throughout the storyline of Scripture, that's one of God's signature moves. He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If you have a Bible or a device, or you have the worship guide and you brought a monocle to be able to read it, you are welcome to turn there now, and let's look at numbers 16 together, verse 1. I want to look at the proud. Let's look at the proud here. Number 16, verse 1 says this. Now Korah, the son of Izhar, son of Kohas, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and An, the son of Pelith, sons of Reuben, took men. Now, when we read this, these names are confusing to us, but they are ancient hyperlinks to other places in the story of Scripture. That's what's happening here. And so when we read that Korah is a Levite and a son of Kohath in verse 1, that cues to the close and careful reader of Scripture that this group of people were actually charged with this really incredible responsibility, which was to carry the most holy things in God's mobile tent dwelling that's called the tabernacle. They had a really important responsibility. And then Dathan and Abiram, being sons of Reuben, who was the firstborn son of all of Israel's sons, it's a really prestigious role, they were meant to be leaders in Israel. Now, let me make that plain. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram should have had high status in Israel, but they didn't. Why? Well, because God chose Moses as the leader, not Reuben or his descendants, and he chose Aaron as the high priest, not the sons of Koath. And so you can see there's something going on here for these men as they take up their dissatisfaction that leads them into a rebellion. Korah becomes this ringleader in a rebellion to get the status he thinks he deserves. Look with me at verse 2. And they rose up before Moses with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly. These are, it says, well-known men. In other words, they have high status, just not as high as Moses and Aaron. Verse 3 says, they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. Now, one of the things you have to know is a primary character in the book of Numbers is what's called the camp. Now, there's a slide that'll be up behind me that shows you kind of what this camp would have looked like. But in concentric circles from the outside in, the outermost tribes of Israel would have camped around the outside, and then inside of that would have been the Levites, and then within that was the tent of meeting, the most holy place where God Himself dwelled among his people. That's relevant because the Lord structured his camp with these concentric circles, these inner rings of holiness. Look at verse 3. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and here's the issue: they don't like these inner rings of holiness. And they said to them, You've gone too far. For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? I've never been in a courtroom, but I've seen TV shows, and so I assume this happens. But when you're about to take the stand, right, you put your hand on a Bible in the courtroom and you say, I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. What is happening here is that Korah has taken a half-truth and made it the whole truth, thereby becoming an untruth, which is heretics 101. That's what you do. You affirm one truth strongly, but you deny another one. And that's what's happening here. So let me just ask you: are all in the congregation of Israel, are they all holy? Yes. Leviticus 19, 2 says really clearly, speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I am the Lord your God, and I am holy. So that's true. But did Moses and Aaron really, quote, exalt themselves above the assembly of the Lord? No. The Lord exalted them. It's a big difference. And so Korah is blinded by his pursuit of status here, and he's forgetting something important. Korah is a Levite. He's in, he's not even in the outer courts, if you will. He's in this inner circle of the holy ones. But it's not enough for him. In fact, Moses and Aaron might be the only people that have greater status than Korah in the people of Israel. And it's not enough for him. Look at verse 9. Moses calls this out. He says, Is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself? Is that not enough for you? One of the things we're seeing in the pattern of the people of Israel in the book of Numbers is that whether the human cravings are for meat or for power or for exclusive access, it is never enough. It's never enough. Because Korah has fallen prey to what C.S. Lewis calls the desire to be in the inner ring. Lewis says at some point in your life, you're going to experience this. You're going to experience that one of the most dominant elements of our existence as human beings is the desire to be inside the inner ring and the terror of being left outside of it. We all experience this in a variety of ways. Out of this desire to be an insider, many of us will stay late at work and even take projects on the weekends, special projects that we, you know, we complain about. And maybe it's tiring and unhealthy to work on a Saturday afternoon, but to have them free because you don't matter would be far, far worse. And so you work yourself endlessly trying to pursue, ambitiously pursuing the ascendancy through these inner rings of exclusivity. You see, the problem isn't in the fact that there are inner rings. They're not the issue. The issue is our desire to get inside of groups that are more exclusive than the ones that we already belong to. The underlying question is: who am I if I'm not with them, whoever they may be? And so the proud disregard people who can't help them to ascend. They're lesser than. If you can give me status, I will give you my time, energy, attention, devotion. But if you can't offer me anything, why would I do that? Now I want to commend you, new city. In the last year or so, I've heard more people in their 40s and 50s asking for me to connect them with people in their 20s and 30s to invite into their circles to disciple them. Why do I love that? Because those people can't give you any status. All you have is to offer them status. That's a really important thing. But I was talking to some of the business leaders in our congregation. I asked, hey, what is this dynamic, this inner ring dynamic, look like in the workplace? It was illuminating for me. One of them spoke about how they've seen mid-level people cry because they were not invited into a meeting that they wanted to be a part of. Another one said that there's this on the surface a culture, a team culture, but underneath is this zero-sum game. And so you can't have friends in the workplace because everybody is competition. And so gossip and self-promotion become the lingua franca of that workplace. You see, the reality of living to press further up and further into these inner rings creates an immense pressure. One person said the pressure is the pressure to say yes to everything, always doing and producing more and more and more. Because how else are you going to ascend the hierarchy? And sometimes even people land in the ER because of stress and anxiety and panic attacks, and they're pecking away at their work phones from the hospital bed, unable or unwilling to unplug, wearing their hospital stay as a badge of honor. You see, one of the reasons many of you are so busy, so exhausted, so overcommitted is because of the pride that's motivating you to ascend into the upper, upper, upper rings. Thinking that once you finally get into the next one, it'll be enough. You see, this is Korah's problem. He's showing us what it looks like to want to be in the inner ring. And C.S. Lewis, in this article called The Inner Rings, he says this of all passions, the passion for the inner ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man to do very bad things. Korrah might not have been a ringleader of a rebellion against God most high if it wasn't for this desire that we share with him to be in the next inner ring. Now I want to contrast proud Korah with humble Moses. Look with me at verse four. When Moses heard it, he fell on his face. I like to call this faceplant leadership. And this speaks to me. The reason why is because I was a skateboarder for most of my life. And so I just like to imagine that Big Mo is trying to golly nose grind a handrail and he clips his lip and he faceplants, falls on his face. That's not what's happening, but I like to think that that's what's happening. What's really happening here, and this really did catch me years ago when I was reading through the book of Numbers and our Bible reading plan, and I came to this realization that godly leaders fall on their faces before God as a strategy of leadership. This is core to godly leadership. If you don't believe me, just track with me here. Abraham fell on his face before God in Genesis 17, 3. Joshua fell on his face in Joshua 5, Ruth fell on her face in Ruth 2, David fell on his face in 1 Samuel 20, Ezekiel fell on his face in Ezekiel 1, Daniel fell on his face in Daniel 10, Jesus fell on his face in Matthew 26. What is happening here? Well, you see, because to fall, to fall down prostrate with your face to the ground is a position of being humbled before the exalted one. The Bible says, you are dust. And so if that's true, beloved dust, inspired dust, yes, dust nonetheless, than to fall on their face before God, it's a posture of saying, you are holy and I am not. You are exalted and I am low. You are the one who is great and I am actually small. It's a the proper positioning of the humble before the holy God. That's why all of these godly leaders find themselves falling on their face before God. And it's it's not only fear and trembling, it's also awe and adoration and exhilaration because true status looks like submission and surrender, not ascending to the next and highest ring. Jesus says it like this everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And he who humbles himself will be exalted. I take great hope in that because it's easier to go low than to rise up high. And this is within the realm of all of our agency, right? It's the one who exalts himself or the one who humbles himself. You can go low. And there's a good promise in Scripture that grace runs downhill. That God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. You see, face plant leadership shows us that the way up is down. And in verse five, we see that Moses said to Korah and all his company, In the morning the Lord will show who is his and who is holy, and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him. You see, what Moses is willing to do here is to let God vindicate him. It's a humble move. One of the places this main point shows up in scripture is in 1 Peter chapter 5. Peter says this, writing to the whole church, he says, Clothe yourselves, all of you, in humility toward one another. Why? Peter says, For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. He goes on, he says, Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you. What does it look like to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God? This verse right here, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. That's what Moses is doing right here. He's casting his anxieties on the Lord. He's saying, Lord, you vindicate me, you handle this situation, you show up and act. And that actually frees him up. You see, because pride fills you with cares and anxieties, but humility actually frees you to be carefree in the care of God. That's what Moses is experiencing here. But it goes on in verse 9, this is his critique. He says, Is it too small a thing for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel? Listen to this language, to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them. And that he has brought you near to him, and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you. And would you seek the priesthood also? And here's the key piece. Therefore it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together. What is Aaron that you grumble against him? Verse 9, that phrase, is it too small a thing for you? You see, look at all that God has given to you, and yet you're still discontent. And is your discontentment at your spouse or your boss or your situation? According to Moses, he says, What is Aaron that you grumble against him? Your discontentment is against the Lord. Your dissatisfaction is actually towards the Lord. You see, because discontentment with our current ring will always lead to a desire for a more attractive and exclusive ring. Your inner ring in this room, diverse people, your inner ring might be a country club or a punk rock band. You might be a Swifty or a sneakerhead. You might be wanting to be in a corporate boardroom or a CrossFit gym or the PTA or even a church leadership team. But as long as you're governed by that desire, you will never get what you want. The reason is because as you try to peel that onion, you will succeed until there's nothing left. And so discontent is not only destructive to you, it's dishonoring to God. And so in verse 20, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, Separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment. He takes their discontent very seriously. But look how Moses and Aaron respond. And Moses and Aaron fell on their faces and said, Oh God, the God of the spirits of all flesh. When you're reading the Bible, however God's address, his titles, his names, it's worth just underlining, slowing down, paying attention. Oh God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin and will you be angry with all the congregation? You see, the humble are free to see God for who he really is. There's a way in which many of us miss God in the world because we expect him to be all over high and lifted up in profound ways, but he's actually at our feet oftentimes, washing them. Because we worship a humble God who is high and lifted up and also with the broken and the lowly and the contrite. You see, when they call him the God of the spirits of all flesh, what they're saying here is that God is sovereign over the life of every human being. He has ownership over the lives of every human being. Because Moses and Aaron knew that a heavy dose of the sovereignty of God is medicinal to the mania of pride. When you see God high and lifted up, who holds your very life in his hand, the God of the spirits of all flesh, when that begins to soak in, that that's ultimate reality, not you and your little ladder of success, you begin to be set free. You don't have to be so proud. You don't have to pursue higher and greater status. And so Moses, freed up to be content with the place that God has him, in verse 28 says this. And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. You see, Moses is just trying to do what the Lord has sent him to do. It's another way to talk about what calling or vocation is. Who is God made you to be? What is he called you to do? Maybe you don't have to ambitiously ascend in order to matter. Maybe you can just do all that God has given you to do. Ephesians 2.10 says that we were created in Christ Jesus, where his workmanship, and that he actually did that in order to give you good works to walk in that he's prepared beforehand. Maybe that's your life's mission, is to just simply walk out the good works that God gave you, that he prepared beforehand for you in Christ. I was talking to again one of those business leaders and I and I asked them, like, what's the antidote? What's the way forward? If this is the culture of the workplace often. And they said the lack of idolization of the room is what actually gets you invited in. The obvious desire to be in the room is the thing that obstructs your ability to get in, because people think your chief goal is just to be in the room, not to do the work that it requires. I love this. Moses is giving us the way forward. Do what God has sent you to do. Nothing more, nothing less. He's given you good works to walk in. That's all Moses is trying to do. And so maybe you pass up a promotion or an exclusive dinner or an opportunity of a lifetime because you have a deep and settled sense that wherever God has you, you could say with Moses in verse 28, the Lord has sent me to do all these works. And it has not been of my own accord. Moses is so confident the Lord will show up for him in real time that he leaves this up to him. The third and final point is that is God's opposition and grace. Look at verse 31 with me. And as soon as Moses had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from their mid from the midst of the assembly. And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up. And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense. This is a picture of God's poetic justice. His punishment always fits the crime. Dathan and Abiram refused to, quote, come up in verse 12, and so they went down alive into Sheol, verse 33. Korah wanted to play with fire, and the dude got burned. And so what we see here is that the proud, recognizing that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, it might be the antidote to your pride. But Korah's story is not over. In fact, later in the book of Numbers, chapter 26, if you want to turn there, you can, verse 9, the narrator is telling this story, and they add a surprising note. In Numbers 26, verse 9, it says this Dathan and Abiram, who contended against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah, when they contended against the Lord, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah, when that company died, when the fire devoured 250 men, and they became a warning. And here's the key text, verse 11. But the sons of Korah did not die. What's the significance of that detail? The Holy Spirit does not waste his breath when he inspires Scripture. That phrase matters. The sons of Korah did not die. Somehow God preserved Korah's descendants, sparing them from their father's fate. And in fact, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace upon grace upon grace, so much though that in 2 Chronicles 20, verse 19, it says this and the Levites of the Kohites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. You see, the sons of Korah became musicians, singers, and gatekeepers in the temple of David. Their access, the access that their dad was grasping for was given to them by grace. Now, because of God, his opposition to Korah, but his grace to his sons, the sons of Korah wrote some of the most beautiful Psalms. They're on like the greatest hits list. Some of you know these, Psalms 42 through 49, Psalms 84 through 85, Psalms 87 and 88. These are all written by the sons of Korah. And interestingly, some of the themes that mark these Psalms are redemption from Sheol and a longing for God's presence. Our call to worship this morning came from Psalm 84. Many of us know this one. It goes like this: a psalm of the sons of Korah. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, feints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a son and a shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. Better to be a doorkeeper than a ringleader. Better to be the kind of sons of Korah who learn from their family story that the kind of status that our Lord is most concerned with and that calls us to is the status that comes from proximity to himself. To long, yes, faint for the courts of the Lord, to be near unto God, and to be contented with the status that comes from that. So how can we be the kind of people who have the humility to be content with proximity to God? Well, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard tells a story called The King and the Poor Maiden. Tells a story about this king who was great and exalted, and all of his enemies feared him, and everybody knew if he said this, it would happen, or else punishable by death. And as he was parading through his kingdom, he saw a beautiful poor maiden that he immediately fell in love with. So he went back to his castle and he strategized. How am I gonna get her? He thought, well, the first and easiest thing he could do is to command her to love him. Like he could roll up, pomp and circumstance, banners and horses, swords and shields, and command her to become his wife. But the problem is that forced love is not true love, and he knew it. See, he knew that if he wanted a cringing subject, he could do that, but he wanted a lover. That option wouldn't work. Second option, he could elevate her to his status. He could show up and give her gold rings and precious stones and a robe and a cloak and a crown and lift her up to his level, to let her ascend the rings. But the problem is he would never know if he was loved by her for himself or for his gifts. So the only other option he was left with was to become a peasant like her in order to win her love truly. And so this king, convinced that he could not command her love or elevate her to his status without crushing her freedom, he resolved to descend down to her. Not in disguise, truly and really forsaking all that was rightfully his as the king of the kingdom and taking on the broken and tattered robe of a beggar, he goes and meets this woman and wins her affections. Now you see, Jesus did this in the incarnation. This is the true story of the world. We live in a world that is a romance in the midst of a battlefield, and this is what the true king did. You see, he left the innermost ring of heaven in order to come down. And while the proud are grasping to ascend into the inner ring, the Son of God descends in order to bring us into the only ring that really matters. You see, Jesus fell on his face before God in Gethsemane because he knew he would be swallowed up in judgment, that he would descend into Sheol. But rather than descending into Sheol alive, he ascended from Sheol alive, and now he ascended to heaven, and he's seated on the throne at the highest ring, and he's bringing us up to be with him. You see, the dust of earth is now seated on the throne of heaven. And so we look to Jesus, the exalted one, and as we look to him, we can humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, because we know at the proper time, just like he exalted Jesus, he will exalt us as well. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Let's pray. Jesus, we worship you. Holy Spirit, you alone can stir up our affections to see Jesus in all that he is. We want to behold the King and His beauty. What kind of King is this that would come down? Forgive us for being so preoccupied with ascending into further up and further end into inner rings when you, Jesus, showed us what true humanity looks like. We love you, we worship you, we adore you, we want to be like you, but more than that, we want to be with you and in you, seated with you in the heavenly places where you dwell. It's in your beautiful name we pray. Amen.