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If My People – Numbers 15 to 17 – Grumble or Humble?

4/26/2015

Here at Streamside Unity, we are working our way through the Bible verse by verse. We seek the answer to what Jesus meant in the Gospel of John when he prayed to his father for all who believe in him to be brought to perfect unity, just as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have perfect unity (John 17:20-26).

In Numbers 15 to 17, we see the entire Cycle at work. What do we mean by the “Cycle”? Just follow the bold italic terms, ten of them, in order – they represent the cycle of humanity and God’s plan for us.

As Chapter 15 opens, we see Moses the humble servant of God, in intimate unity with God and we learn what God expects when the Israelites arrive in the land flowing with milk and honey that God is giving them. Next, God gives out his commandments instructing Israel concerning the offerings they are to give in the new land.

Here is where Israel finds out not only what God unequivocally expects from them, but also that, because of their fallen nature, God understands that they will be victims of temptation and disobedience, leading to disunity from him.

We see in Chapter 16 that God gives very fair warning when we are separated from God’s commands, and if we do not listen, God is sure to judge. But his purpose in judgment is to set the stage for his never-ending love. What God wants is for us to repent and simply agree we goofed up. For the sincere, he provides the means for sacrificial atonement so that we may experience complete restoration and unity with God, thus completing the cycle.

But if we continue to sin defiantly and intentionally, judgment is carried out with stern resolve.

All of this is present in Numbers 15 to 17. Of the 105 verses in this section, 33 of them report the cycle of temptation, disobedience, disunity, warnings and judgment! The astonishing thing is that each time there is judgment involving loss of life by the defiant grumblers against Moses and Aaron, Israel turns right around literally hours later and grumbles all over again!

How like them are we in our disunity today! What is the solution to this lost cause of humanity? Using Moses the humble one, God offers us several things for us to think about:

·       Remember all God’s commandments and be holy (15:40)

·       In the face of open rebellion, show humility, passionate prayer, and non-violence (16:4)

·       Vent anger privately to God, not to your assailant (16:15)

·       Listen for the whisper of God and obey what you hear (16:47)

·       Take your stand between the dead and the living; between disunity and unity (16:48)

Moses and Aaron took their stand to atone for Israel’s blatant sin and stopped God’s plague because of God’s never-ending love for their humility and unity.

Will we humble instead of grumble and take our stand for perfect unity?

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If My People – Numbers – Point of No Return?

4/18/2015

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The history and the future of the world in a 500 words:

The first verse of Numbers chapters 11-14 is a stunning reversal from the calm before the storm (previous blog) to incurring the storm of God’s judgment. The earlier history of the world revolved around Israel – chosen, loved passionately, guided and taught by God.

God expected unity with him in everything. Israel completely understood.

But Israel fell self-inflicted to the Cycle of temptation, disobedience, disunity, warnings and horrible judgment.

The people became tempted to complain about the harsh conditions in the wilderness. The Lord’s anger was kindled and he warned them with a fire that consumed an area outside the camp. Moses prayed for them and the fire stopped. But the people continued to complain that they had no meat to eat, just that tasteless manna God kept dropping every morning. And God’s anger was kindled again.

In total frustration, Moses, the most humble man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3), did a very smart thing – he poured out his heart to the Lord, saying, “I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me” (Numbers 11:14, NASB). God’s love for Moses was never-ending love and he stepped in to help.

But from this point, just in these four chapters, there were fifty events of temptation, disobedience, warnings from God and finally a major plague of punishment by God. And it is safe to say that this pattern will continue throughout the remainder of the Old Testament, with the Cycle being repeated over and over.

That is because there was no one who could carry the burden of this people and save them from themselves.

Is this the point of no return? Is our future the same as the past?

Go back with me to Moses when he poured out his heart to God. Picture that scene in your mind. Was Moses prostrate in the dirt, perhaps pounding the ground in despair, his tears muddying his face?

Later in history there was to be another who faced a nearly identical dilemma; another who was asked to bear the burden of humanity; another who cried out to God in frustration and sweated beads of blood; another who asked why God had forsaken him.

But this man was God himself, temporarily human for the sole purpose of doing what Moses could not do – take on the sins of the world.

This man, by acquiescing to the will of his father, gave himself in return for all humanity’s failures. He determined that there is a point of return to the never-ending love of God and restoration by God to unity with God.

The future of the world:

“…to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance…and all who were angry at Him will be put to shame…in the Lord all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory” (Isaiah 45:23-25, NASB).

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If My People – Numbers – Calm Before the Storm

4/11/2015

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It has been exactly one year since God struck down the firstborn of Egypt, passed over the sons of Israel, and delivered them from slavery while drowning the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. God has led his chosen people with pillar of cloud by day and fire by night into the wilderness. He has promised to give Israel a land flowing with milk and honey.

God needed Israel’s undivided attention for a full year to transform them from slaves completely inoculated with pagan Egyptian culture into people of God. Throughout Exodus, Leviticus and the first six chapters of Numbers, God sculpts a beautiful, holy people from the rough-hewn rubble of slavery.

In Numbers 7 – 10, God polishes his sculpture. All but two of 419 verses in these four chapters are commands of God through Moses and Israel’s response in unity with God and understanding that day-to-day government flows from what is holy. Both holiness and organized government make a nation that honors God and is loved by God.

Israel has spent an entire year in training for the journey to come under the watchful tutelage of the God who loves them, far from civilization, where he can chip away anything that does not look like Israel’s unity with God. To emphasize this transformation, God commands that Israel celebrate the Passover on the first anniversary of their deliverance from Egypt.

Then God underscores how Israel is to affirm its unity with God in the future, in good times and bad. He commands that they fashion two silver trumpets and how they are to be blown, with certain signals for preparing the entire nation to set out on their journeys, and with other signals for sounding alarms in the event of attack.

But God’s intent is not only tactical for logistics and defense. It is also to underscore and shout why they must actively practice unity with God.

“When you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God, and be saved from your enemies.

“Also in the day of your gladness…you shall blow the trumpets over your…offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I AM the LORD your God.” (Numbers 10:9-10, NASB)

Remembered by God; saved from your enemies; reminded that you stand before God. There can be no question whether Israel understands its relationship with God through Moses and what God expects of them after 1,134 commands since the beginning of Exodus.

Nor can there be any question of our relationship with God through Jesus today and what he expects of us through his commands in the New Testament. We are without excuse for disobedience.

For Israel, this has been the calm before the storm. Remember this as the scene in Numbers 11 shifts dramatically away from unity with God to blatant disobedience.

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If My people - Numbers - and give you peace

4/4/2015

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This is a special Easter for me. If the Cycle we are studying is valuable amid hundreds of commands in the Book of Numbers, I can only imagine the beauty waiting in the narratives, proverbs, psalms, prophets, Gospels and apostolic letters yet to come!

Why two weeks since the last blog? The political riptides after getting fired from my job got much worse. In order to get paid for work I had already committed to do, the company was forced by my very loyal client to rehire me for one week. The process they chose was one of invasive humiliation. Over the past two weeks, I have endured long new employee job applications, credit checks, I-9 immigration work authorization checks, criminal background checks, and yes, even a drug screening test. I was treated like a recently-paroled criminal, not the guy they had known for 37 years, and my self-worth bled to an all-time low.

Simultaneously, I was researching the first six chapters of Numbers and found myself in a maze of commands, laws and regulations – two deserts, both adding to a depressing, unquenchable thirst.

But in Numbers 5, there appeared one nearly hidden example of God’s restoration as a direct result of our repentance, and here in the middle of Holy Week I saw a dramatic parallel among the testing of a woman by jealous husband, the prayer I had prayed for my own forgiveness after getting fired, and the testing of Jesus on the cross which we focus upon this week.

The accused woman, whether or not she was guilty of defiling herself, had to endure a horrible test by the priest that is hard to comprehend today. But if she did nothing wrong, according to Numbers 5:28, she was free and able to bear children. Jesus had to endure an even more horrible test, though he had done nothing wrong, and he endured it so that even if that woman had done something wrong, she could repent and be redeemed and restored by the sacrifice of Jesus.

I am far more like a disobedient sinner than like Jesus. But because the travesty of Jesus on the cross was accepted by Jesus out of his never-ending love for us, I was forgiven whatever things I had done wrong at work the instant I asked, and the animal desire for revenge evaporated.

My prayer for you this Easter is Numbers 6:24-26, the blessing of Aaron:

“The Lord bless you, and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace.” (NASB)

This is our unity with God, the Father who blesses, the Son who shines and is gracious; and the Spirit who gives peace.

Life is full of tests like Good Friday. But as my wonderful wife Sue says many times, “It may be Friday, but Sunday’s a’comin’!”

Yesterday, on Good Friday, my client fired the company that fired me and retained me to continue working for them.

There is only one Easter, one risen Christ. He is alive, indeed!

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If My People – Numbers 15 to 17 – Grumble or Humble?

If My People – Numbers – Point of No Return?

If My People – Numbers – Calm Before the Storm

If My people - Numbers - and give you peace

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