Sermon Tone Analysis

Numbers 12-???

If you remember from our study last week, I mentioned this pattern that we see developing beginning in chapter 11 of the people murmuring against God.

I warned you that it was going to be a pattern that we would see continuing as we progressed through the book.

Where it looks like good cop bad cop.

The people complain about God, Moses goes to God and asks for mercy, and the people continue to complain.

Two weeks ago we were in chapter 11 and the people complained against God.

This aroused the anger of the Lord and God sent fire that consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.

I’ll remind you again, to never neglect the opportunities God gives us to learn from the lives of others.

Rather than take heed and be grateful for their deliverance, The people had been complaining about how much they missed the food they were given when they were slaves in Egypt.

Because they continued in their incessant whining, what did God send them?

Meat to eat! Quail.

Quail so thick they could just bat them from the sky and they did, thousands upon thousands of them.

At the end of the chapter we read that the wrath of the Lord was again aroused against the people, while the meat was still between their teeth, they were struck with a great plague.

And they called that place Kibroth Hattaavah - Literally translated as Graves of Craving.

The sacrificed their lives to the lusts of their flesh.

As much as I want to complete this book before our Growth Groups begin, I don’t want to do it at the sacrifice of content, so if we don’t get it done, we’ll just finish the ending on Sunday mornings, but lets pray and we’ll see how far we get....

I hope that as we have been going through the Scriptures together, both in the Old Testament and the New, the emphasis of Unity among God’s people has stood out to you.

In the new testament, as we see the disciples being sent out, always being sent out in two’s so that we are not alone, we have strength and encouragement through fellowship with one another.

Many of you have felt like you were all alone in this world as a Christian.

When you feel all alone you can quickly get discouraged and go back to walking in the flesh that place of Kibroth Hattaavah, rather than being led and encouraged in the Spirit.

There is a huge difference in being all alone, and just being small in number.

When you’re small in number you are just the underdog, the world can be against you, but if it’s US against the world, walking in the Strength of the Lord, it’s a whole lot different than being all alone....does this .....

Feel any different than this....

Of course it does, silly illustration, but I want you to see the significance of how chapter 12 begins...

Let’s remember who Miriam and Aaron were to Moses…Miriam was his sister and Aaron was his brother…those that should have been the closest to him.

That is why it is sooo, sooo, important if you are called into a place of leadership or into ministry, and we all are to one degree or another, that you feed your relationship with God because He is faithful even when others are sometimes not.

Notice too what they criticize Moses for…for marrying an Ethiopian woman…now back in Exodus 2 we are told that Moses marries a woman named Zipporah, the daughter of a man named Jethro from Median.

There’s some disagreement among Bible scholars if Jethro was originally from Ethiopia and then moved to Median, or if Moses outlived Zipporah and remarried which was very possible as he would have been around 81 years old at this point, to me, that stuff doesn’t matter, because we won’t know till we get to Heaven, but what I want you to see, is that they start with an attack that is not only very personal, but it was also something that she couldn’t change about herself.

Whether their issue was about where she was from, or because she was Ethiopian so her skin was dark, either way, out of her control, not stuff she, nor Moses could change.

That’s pattern number one that we still see so prevalent in our current culture…and sadly it is being done by a people that have suffered persecution for centuries, just simply because they are Jews.

The second thing I want to point out is that this personal attack that they start with, this personal offense against the wife of Moses, wasn’t really what they were upset about at all, and how often does that happen in our culture?

Let’s see what they were really upset about...

The ugly head of jealousy is exposed!

Has the Lord spoken only though Moses????

This was totally intended to tare Moses down, and it starts with an assumption that He is prideful about what the Lord has done through him, that the Lord has chosen him to be the Leader of Israel and the one to whom God speaks....they go on, hasn’t He also spoken through us, tare Moses down, and then attempt to elevate themselves....and that caught the Lord’s attention, the end of the verse says, and the Lord heard it!

Look what the Scriptures reveal to us about Moses in the very next verse....

There is so much to learn from Moses here.

So often I see leaders, inside and outside of ministry be criticized and that is all it takes to knock them off track or off mission.

We just read the Lord heard it.

The Lord always hears it, so we are to stay on mission and continue in the work that He has called us to do, and let Him defend us.

As Jesus did.... in Isaiah we read this prophecy...

So neither did Moses, but God opened His mouth, Look at verse 4 with me...

The traditional sense in which God spoke to prophets was through dreams and visions, but with Moses it was way more intimate...

This was way David was unwilling to lay his hands upon Saul, even after the anointing had left Saul, but he at one time had been God’s anointed and David feared God and held His anointed in high regard.

So the anger of the Lord is once again aroused and He departs…but He left them with something…verse 10

It sounds like it was so sudden that Miriam may not have even realized it, but Aaron, the high priest certainly recognized it.

Now Aaron is like so many people today, two minutes ago, he was arm and arm with his sister attacking Moses, now he calls him lord, or master, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t let her be as one dead.

See leprosy was like our worst form of cancers or radiation poisoning, if you were a leper you were considered the walking dead, and had to instantly be quarantined.

Look at verse 14...

This might not make allot of sense to us, but it sort of explains why God did what He did.

He is talking about shame from having one spit in your face.

The leprosy was an outward picture of the sickness in her heart, it was her heart exposed.

We learn something else here as well.

That there was a consequence to her sin, but it says afterward she may be received again…so we know that God also forgave her and healed her, or she never would have been allowed back into the camp.

When we get to chapter 13, if we were looking at a timeline, this would mark about two years out of the land of Egypt and in the wilderness.

And they have come to the place of Kadesh Barnea, just south of the border to enter into the land of Canaan, the Promised Land.

After all of their trials and complaints they are finally there and they think ready to enter into the land that the Lord has promised them.

God tells Moses to send in a group of men, to spy out the land.

See what the geography is like, where they should settle, assess the strength of the enemy, God tells him to send one man from each of the tribes…if you look down to verse 6 we see...

Jeff-phan-ah

Oshea means deliverer or salvation and Yeh is the contraction for Jehovah, the name of God.

So the name Joshua is one of the compound names of Jehovah, which means, "God is salvation" or the "Lord is salvation" or the "Lord our salvation".

The Greek word for Joshua is what?.... Jesus.

So the 12 spies are sent into the land with instructions to go into the South, up into the mountains, see if the people are strong or weak, see if the cities are simple and small like camps or fortresses and strongholds, is the land rich or poor, and while your in there, it’s grape season, bring back a sample of the grapes…look at verse 23...

Esh - call, we will see there is major significance to the length of time they were in the land, the 40 days…, now after the 40 days the spies return with their report…verse 26...

Caleb has faith, his name means “whole-hearted” bold, brave, he says let’s go for it, they’re not lying, but we are well able to overcome it!

But....verse 31

The other spies discouraged the people saying the people in this land will devour us, we don’t stand a chance.

And suddenly circumstances and perspective, defeat the promises of God, without a battle even being fought.

I want you to see that two different people, or 12 different people can see the exact same thing, the exact same challenges and circumstances and two can come back singing and praising God for the humongous grapes and the land that He’s going to give them, and others can see the exact same thing and despair in doom and gloom and their lack of faith lead them to a place of continued wandering and defeat.

They saw the same exact things, so it’s not our circumstances or the obstacles that determine our faith, but rather in whom we place our faith.

Caleb and Joshua were able to look at all the same things that discouraged and defeated their brothers and say, I can’t wait to see what God does here!

Some might say, that’s not practical or realistic, but tell me how doubting the promises the the Almighty God are in any way practical or anything to place your faith in.

Chapter 14

Skip to verse 6...

See what these guys do, they take the eyes of the people off the the circumstances and try to get them to look at God, place their faith in God.

IF God wants to do this, circumstances don’t matter, God will do it.

Verse 9

Caleb and Joshua, attempt to encourage the people and remind them of the promises of God, and the reaction is to stone them!

This is so incredibly sad, God had said as recorded in the book of Exodus...

So just go take it.

They are right there at the border to the promised land, the only thing they lack is faith in God.

The faith required to walk in His promises.

How much more faith does it take to walk outside the promises of God, and who then is our faith in, us?

Ourselves?

It is so sad today the number of Christians that walk around continuously defeated and weary.

Wandering and roaming in a type of wilderness, trying to endure and growing weary, instead of taking up Jesus’ offer to yoke with Him.

To take up His yoke and learn from Him, His yoke is easy and light, not heavy and burdensome.

Study that passage in Matthew 11 so you’re not living a life of wandering, just outside of the life that Jesus has promised you.

Verse 11

God basically says, stand back Moses, I’m going to roast these guys.

Moses says please don’t God, your name is mighty and known in this land, verse 17

God wanted to pardon the people and I think was blessed by the heart of his leader Moses, who here was selfless, interceding on behalf of the people and not full of self interest.

And God forgave them.

I love verse 21..

That was a promise to them and a promise to us.

As surely as the Lord lives, there is coming a day when the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord!

I can’t wait!

You that have complained against me saying, God brought us out here to kill us, to have us leave our children buried in the wilderness.

What you have said, will be so.