The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? Number 14:11
This verse just takes my breath away. I can hear the sadness in God’s heart over the unbelief of his children. As I’ve been reading Numbers 14 so many parallels have come to my mind between the Israelites of old and humanity today. Do I dare say even Christians today!? Originally I was going to do one post, but as I read and write out this chapter I realized there was just to much for one post, so I will be breaking it down by the headings in the chapter. I hope that these post encourage and admonish us in our walk with the Lord. May we not be like those the Lord mentions in verses 22-23, that never get to see the promised land because of our unbelief.
So the context of this chapter is that the spies have just returned from spying out the land. And 10 of the 12 men sent (One from each tribe) came back with a report something like “Yikes, we can’t do this, those people are strong, their cities are fortified and there are giants in the land. Yeah sure the land is flowing with milk and honey, but we looked like grasshoppers next to them” (my paraphrase 🙂 ). One thing they forgot to say was, “But (because what you believe always follows the “but”) God has said (back in 13:1) that he has given us this land, so trusting in him we will conquer the land and it’s people and go forth and claim our land”. No, they didn’t say that…
So what do the people do? They raised a loud cry and wept all night. Then they did what we all do so well (14:2), “all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.”. Then those famous last words of so many of us over the millennia, who lack faith in who God is and what he has done say ““Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 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?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (14:2-4). They reacted emotionally, without thought and faith and wanted to go back to slavery! Another thing I thought about with all this is….let’s say they did go back. Do you think the Egyptians would have said, “welcome back! You can go right back to what you were doing as slaves with the same provisions”, or do you think it would have been…… “let’s see, because of you all our first born have died, we have suffered all kinds of plagues and our army was drowned because of you. To death with you all!! Without being insensitive , if would have been the first Holocaust. All the Israelites would have been exterminated, am I right?! But their first idea was to go back! Why?! They did not believe God! After all he did, after all he showed them thus far (look it up) they still didn’t believe.
This is so convicting to me! My word! Lately in my own life I have been plagued by doubt, fear, anxiety, depression, lack of hope. I have doubted God and all he has done for me thus far in my life. I am no different then these people! No different! And I have the word of God to read everyday, to further show me the faithfulness of God and I still struggle. When will this change?! Oh Lord, forgive me for doubting you! I believe! Help my unbelief! (Matthew 9:24).
Moses and Aaron pled with the people. Joshua and Caleb (the 2 who said, “God’s got this, we can take them”) reminded them and said this, “If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” This is faith! This is trust! But what do the people do in the very next verse? I should make you go look it up, but I’ll tell you. They thought it would be a good idea to stone them with stones! What kind of mass hysteria brings about this purely emotion based idea?!! No clear thinking. No calm going over the facts and seeing God’s faithfulness through this whole thing. Nope, just an irrational response that makes absolutely no sense. Sound familiar to anyone??? (and no this is not a political post, even though I’m sure this does apply there too! This is just good old human nature at it’s worse).
So that is where we get to verse 11, God’s question to Moses. I didn’t post the second part of it above, but here is God’s solution. “I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” (14:12)
Next post how Moses intercedes for this people….
Go read your Bible!