Numbers 13-14 | In the Wilderness

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

Episode Transcript

Rev. Benjamin Kandt (00:06):
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Benjamin.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City, Orlando.
At New City, we long to see ourFather answer the Lord's
Prayer.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at Newcity Orlando.com.

Gine Fickett (00:20):
Please join me in praying the prayer of
illumination.
Teach us your way, O Lord, thatwe may walk in your truth and
find life in Jesus Christ ourLord.
Amen.
Today's scripture reading istaken from Numbers 13 and 14.
At the end of forty days theyreturned from spying out the

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land, and they came to Moses andAaron and to all the
congregation of the people ofIsrael in the wilderness of
Paren at Kadesh.
They brought back word to themand to all the congregation and
showed them the fruit of theland.
And they told him, We came tothe land to which you sent us.
It flows with milk and honey,and this is its fruit.

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However, the people who dwellin the land are strong, and the
cities are fortified and verylarge.
And besides, we saw thedescendants of Anak there.
The Amalekites dwell in theland of the Negeb, the Hittites,
the Jebusites, and the Amoritesdwell in the hill country, and
the Canaanites dwell by the seaand along the Jordan.

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Then all the congregationraised a loud cry, and the
people wept that night, and allthe people of Israel grumbled
against Moses and Aaron.
The whole congregation said tothem, Would that we had died in
the land of Egypt?
Or would that we had died inthe wilderness?
Why is the Lord bringing usinto this land to fall by the

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sword?
Our wives and our little oneswill become a prey.
Would it not be better for usto 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, Howlong will this people despise
me?
And how long will they notbelieve in me in spite of all

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the signs that I have done amongthem?
I will strike them with apestilence and disinherit them,
and I will make of you a nationgreater and mightier than they.
But Moses said to the Lord,Please pardon the iniquity of
this people, according to thegreatness of your steadfast

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love, just as you have forgiventhis people from Egypt until
now.
Then the Lord said, I havepardoned, according to your
word.
But truly, as I live, and asall the earth shall be filled
with the glory of the Lord, noneof the men who have seen my
glory and my signs that I did inEgypt and in the wilderness,

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and yet have put me to the testthese ten times, and have not
obeyed my voice, shall see theland that I swore to give to
their fathers, and none whodespised me shall see it.
When Moses told these words toall the people of Israel, the
people mourned greatly.
And they rose early in themorning and went up to the

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heights of the hill country,saying, Here we are.
We will go up to the place thatthe Lord has promised, for we
have sinned.
But Moses said, Why now are youtransgressing the command of
the Lord when that will notsucceed?
Do not go up, for the Lord isnot among you, lest you be

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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 backfrom following the Lord, the
Lord will not be with you.
But they presumed to go up tothe heights of the hill country,
although neither the Ark of theCovenant of the Lord nor Moses

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departed out of the camp.
Then the Amalekites and theCanaanites who lived in that
country came down and defeatedthem and pursued them, even to
Horma.
This is God's word.

Rev. Dr. Michael Allen (04:13):
Thanks be to God.
Origin stories explain ongoingexperience.
We know this in differentfacets of life.
Next year, our country, theUnited States, will hit the mark
of 250 years since the signingof our Declaration of
Independence.
And many will turn to recallstories of its beginning to

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understand something of itsexperience today.
As we think about pop culture,we live in an era where origin
stories, whether of heroes andoften also of villains, are
crucial to understanding thefull narrative, the full tale.
Each of us in our families, weoften turn back to consider

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olden times and origin storiesof a birth, of a childhood, as a
way to make sense ourselves andto give sense to others.
And this is true also forChristianity.
Origin stories shape ongoingexperience.
In the New Testament, the manystories of early Christians

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following Jesus take us in manydifferent directions, but
perhaps the most common strugglethat was faced, that's
described at length in the bookof Acts, but is recounted
through the majority of the NewTestament texts, is a difficulty
in understanding how followingJesus now, this side of his
ascent to heaven, this side ofthe giving of his Holy Spirit at

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Pentecost, this side of theapostolic mission to the
nations, is that Gentiles aren'tcalled to become Jews.
The church is now aninternational affair, scattered
and sent out.
And we no longer need to keepthe law of Moses, to keep
kosher, to be circumcised, andso forth.

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This is described in Acts 10 to15.
And this winds up then shapingmuch of the ongoing experience
and struggle of the church.
So much so that the first greattroublemaker of the Christian
church, in a very real sense, isa character named Marcion in
the second century.
And responding to and goingmuch more radically beyond what

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we learn in Acts, Marcionsuggests, far from Gentiles
becoming Jews, the way of Jesushas nothing to do with the
Jewish people or the Israelitescriptures.
And so he slices and dices andshrinks the canon of Holy
Scripture to just a few NewTestament books, for they have

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nothing to do with all that Godhad done for Israel.
Now, I suspect most of you havenot heard of Marcion, and very
few are his followers today, butthere are subtle and easy ways
to follow in that same ongoingtemptation.
How easy it is for us topretend that the Bible begins in

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Matthew 1:1, that we can dropin simply and hear where Jesus
comes from in Bethlehem withoutpaying any attention to where
Jesus comes from as describedthroughout the whole Old
Testament.
The Apostle Paul prepares us toface this kind of temptation
and thinking.
Writing to a younger preachernamed Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3,

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he says, all of Scripture isbreathed out of God.
It's useful for teaching andreproof, for correction and
training us up in righteousness,that the man or woman of God
may be equipped for every goodwork.
All of Scripture, old as wellas new, useful that we would be

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equipped for all the good worksbefore us, not just some or a
few.
Perhaps, like me, you sometimeshave to pack a bag for a trip.
There are few feelings in lifemore frustrating than having
arrived, knowing you have aimedto prepare, you've packed with
thoughtfulness, and opening thatbag up and realizing that the

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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 closetat home.
And you're ready for many goodthings, you're prepared for all
sorts of occasions, but you'reunder-equipped and ill-resourced
for something of profoundimportance.

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God gives us all the resources.
God grants all the equippingyou need, brother and sister in
Christ, and he provides it inthe whole of his word.
Now you may have thought, Benwas serious a few weeks ago,
we've got a space and crowdingproblem, so we'll do the book of

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Numbers.
You may have thought perhapssomebody lost a bet, and instead
of getting to preach on Acts orRomans, here we are wandering
through the wilderness ofesoteric texts from antiquity.
But we're here in Numbersprecisely because all of
Scripture is breathed out by GodHimself.

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It's useful because God wantsyou and me to be equipped, not
just for some circumstances andthe occasional good work of love
and witness, but every goodwork.
And so because we want to bewhole, because we want to be
prepared, because we want to beresourced for all that God would

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have us for, we turn to numbersin these weeks.
And today we turn to Numbers 13and 14, the longest passage
we've considered thus far.
And we've just had a recountingof certain snippets across the
two chapters.
The first thing we need to seeis this is a story in three
Acts.
Three Acts.

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Act 1, chapter 13, verse 1,through chapter 14, verse 10.
God of old had promised to givethem this rich land, and now
God says, send scouts for thetime has come.
And so they appoint 12 scoutsto go, and they go for 40 days,

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and they return and they offertwo 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 inwhat he said.
He didn't tell us there arelarge people dwelling there and
they've got fortified cities.
If we were to go and attack, itwould not go well for us.

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Two, Joshua and Caleb, aminority report, they argue the
land is good, the occupants arelarge, the cities are fortified,
but God has said, God has saidhe will give it to us, so we
should go.
The majority say, if we go, ouryoung ones and our women will

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die.
It would be better that weappoint another leader.
It would be better that wewould return to Egypt to slavery
than for us to foolishly gofollowing God's command to take
the land.
Joshua and Caleb plead oncemore, but the people respond,
wanting to stone them.

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So ends Act one.
Act two picks up there inchapter 14, verse 10.
The Lord, the Lord comes intheir midst in his glory, and he
pronounces judgment.
He is going to do away withthem.
He is going to begin again withMoses alone.
And Moses intercedes.

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Your name is on them.
They are your people.
Your name is at hand.
And God relents.
God promises to show themfavor.
God offers pardon.
Though God also insists onconsequences.
The people, in particular, themen who refuse to go and fight,

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so worried for their young oneswho might have been slaughtered
in the doing, those men willdie.
This generation will pass, andonly the young ones who they
were so worried about, only theywill make it in years ahead
into the promised land.
And as for the ten spies, themajority who said this was not

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to be done, God's way was not tobe followed, the task couldn't
be accomplished, they die of aplague 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 ofthe Lord to the congregation of

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the people of Israel.
The people respond.
They groan and they declaretheir 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.

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Do not go.
You will be slaughtered.
But we're told that theypresume to go and they attack
abroad, and as predicted, theyfall.
Thus ends Act 3.
Second thing we can see here,once we've gotten the basic
shape of the story, is thatthere are two very different

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sins described here in chapters13 and 14.
And for all the drama, all themilitary, uh, all the
geopolitical shape of the story,I suspect you and I can each
identify with underlyingelements of each of these sins.
First, they've been told, Godwill give you this great land.

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If his delight in us is true,the peoples, no matter how
imposing, are no threat.
And yet, we can observe theydespair.
They hear the report, theyobserve the opposition, and they
estimate that their chances arenot good.
They despair of success, theydoubt the promise, and they

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refuse to do what God has toldthem to do.
Fast forward to the end of thechapter, and here we have a very
different problem, a verydifferent error.
We're told that hearing thejudgment of God, receiving that
word, they do groan, but theylearn exactly the wrong lesson.

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They go presuming to win ontheir own.
In pride, they march off whenGod has warned them he will not
bless them.
They act even though God hasgranted a stern warning that
they ought to be patient.
They ought to wait on the Lordand His command.
They ought to patiently awaitHis provision and blessing.

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Despair and doubt, presumptionand pride.
The ways in which we fail to dowhat we ought and we do what we
shouldn't do can seem quitevaried.
They can even seem quite variedin a single day.

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And our response isn't tosomehow say, they were terrible.
Thank God.
I don't do that.
We read through scripture andwe see this is an ongoing
reality, not just an old problemfrom which we've somehow
graduated.
Think of John's account of thestory of Jesus.
As we read the account in John,we learn that Peter, not just a

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follower of Christ, but one ofthe closest disciples.
Not just a leader of the earlychurch, but perhaps the single
most significant of theapostles, Peter.
Not just on a random day, buton the day where Jesus has sat
for one final time with hisdisciples, and he's instructed

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them on his departure soon tocome, and he's shown them the
practice of the Last Supper, andhe's preparing them through
words and prayer for a missionthat will extend beyond his
death and departure.
On that night, consider thevaried ways in which Peter
struggles in sin.
First, when Jesus says thathe's to die, Peter rebukes him.

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And Jesus has to respond withan equal and serious rebuke.
Peter wants to correct AlmightyGod, the incarnate Son,
suggesting that his aims andplans are inappropriate.
That takes some gusto.
Then, when they're there atGethsemane in prayer, Peter

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can't stay up.
He repeatedly falls asleep.
Jesus has to say, Come on, wakeup, pray, join me.
But Peter again and again withthe others.
He falls asleep, inactive,incapable of following through
as he should.
It's not over yet.
The story continues, and themob comes, and amazingly,

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apparently Peter is packing at aprayer party, but he pulls out
a sword and he is ready one manto stop an entire mob from
taking Jesus away.
And Jesus has to rebuke himagain.
I'm meant to be given over,handed over into the hands of
men.
I'm meant to be delivered upfor transgressions.

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And Jesus tells Peter to putthe sword away, and Jesus puts
the cutoff ear of Malchus backon, healing him.
And he's taken by the mob.
And the story continues.
While Jesus is being tried andtested in the dark of night,
Peter is being confronted once,twice, three times, eventually

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refusing to acknowledge beforeeven a small child that he knows
Jesus.
Peter is all over the place.
Sometimes rebuking the Lord andready to fight the mob,
sometimes incapable of obeying asimple call to prayer, or

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answering honestly, a simplequestion from a small child.
Like the Israelites on thatday, sometimes despairing and
doubtful, other timespresumptive and prideful,
sometimes refusing to do what'svery clearly called for, other
times going on and pressingahead in face of warnings and

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the call to patience.
We see sin takes very differentforms, and it can take very
different forms within thecourse of a single person, day,
and hour.
But third, we see there's onefaith being addressed here in
this passage.
And to understand that, youneed to understand the center of

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this large, complicated story,and you need to understand how
this story is at the center ofthis larger book of Numbers.
Our passage itself says thatthere are ten different times
where the people of Israel inthe wilderness murmur or grumble
against God.
Clearly, an artful way ofsaying that the God who'd given

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ten words describing the way inwhich you're to love God and
others and the Ten Commandments,his people have broken covenant
an equivalent ten times.
But Numbers actually only tellsseven stories of sin.
Just as the book of Genesistells a seven-day story of how

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the whole world is made andordered for God to be with his
people, so Numbers describes theseven-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 richpromise of life full and

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ongoing?
It leads to death and tocorruption.
And it's crucial to see theseven different stories of sin
and murmuring are told artfully,so that the first and the
seventh are alike, the secondand the sixth are alike, the
third and the fifth are alike,and right here in the middle, we

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find the fourth and longest onethat is like unto none other.
So, for instance, in chapter 11and chapter 21, they grumble
over misfortune.
Later in chapter 11 and inchapter 20, they grumble over
food and water that's not goodenough.
In chapter 11 and 12, and inchapter 16 and 17, they will

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grumble, as we've already seenin the last two weeks, over
leadership that they just aren'tsatisfied with.
Here at the center and herealone, they grumble over the way
God is calling for them toenjoy, to take, to have this
promised land.
This is the center of the bookof Numbers.

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This is the clarifying centerfrom which all else is made
sense of.
And that's not just anobservation I make, that's an
observation the Bible itselfrepeatedly makes.
When you read ahead, and Lordwilling, we will one day make it
to Deuteronomy, my friends.
And when we get there inDeuteronomy 1, Moses is

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recounting the story of God'speople thus far.
And when he tells the story ofthe wandering Israelites in the
wilderness, the key episode heturns to in chapter 1, verse 32,
is this story.
And the key issue is this.
He says, In spite of this God'sword, you did not believe the

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Lord your God.
And it's not just Moses.
If you read ahead to the NewTestament, you'll find the
epistle to the Hebrews recountsin chapters three and four this
whole episode of the generationwandering through the
wilderness.
And the adults, those whoshould have known better, who
should have remembered God'sfaithfulness, his glorious works

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in bringing them from death inEgypt and promising them life in
the land, they fell.
And why did they fall?
Hebrews 3 concludes in verse 18saying, they were not able to
enter because of unbelief.
After it quotes this passage.
Deuteronomy 1 and Hebrews 3both say the key issue in this

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story and the key to all of thewandering in the wilderness is
the challenge of belief orunbelief.
Will we believe God?
The symptoms of unbelief canvary, but unbelief nonetheless
is always the corrupting callthat leads us away from the path

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of God.
As Dennis Olson says, whetherin pride or in despair, the old
wilderness generation failed tolearn the fundamental lesson of
the first commandment to fearlove and trust God above
anything and everything else.
We read in the New Testament,the Apostle Paul speaking to the

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church in Corinth in 2Corinthians 1 20, all the
promises of God are yes inChrist.
A remarkable reminder thatJesus is the one who fulfills
this and that promise of God.
And it's a rich reminder thatHe's good for all occasions and

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circumstances.
Sometimes we do find ourselvesin a circumstance where we look
about and we see the call of Godand we think, it doesn't look
most promising.
The odds don't seem to be inour favor.
I consider my wisdom andstrength, I consider my know-how
and resources, and frankly, Ifeel a little out of my depths.

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We can struggle with despairand doubt if we refuse to take
God, God's character, God'strack record, God's promises,
God's hope on offer to us in thegospel into account.
On other occasions, we can lookat the wider world and like

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those Israelites in Numbers 14.
We can think that God's promptand rebuke is apparently I'm
better than I thought I was.
I had thought I wouldn't farethat well in battle, but God is
rebuking me for not going.
It must be that I'm actuallystronger than I'd originally
thought.
It must be that I've got a morestrategic mind, and therefore

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I'm gonna go.
And every warning aside, andall of God's calls to be patient
and to wait, forsaken, I amgoing to make it happen.
I am gonna do this for God.
I'm gonna do this, if I'mhonest, in my own way, my own
timing, and my own strength.
Whether it's despair and doubtleaving you on the couch, or

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it's presumption and pridepressing you to frantically go
do something and change things.
The key here is what we find inchapter 14, verse 11.
God's response and rebuke isnot your self-esteem was too
low.
God's correction is notactually your greater or lesser

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than you thought.
It's not about us at all.
His rebuke is simple.
Verse 11 says, How long willthey not believe in me?
Otherwise put, how often willthey fail to remember who I am
and all that I've promised andall that it involves for every

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area of life?
Think of the way in which theymight struggle.
We often struggle.
We consider the church, weconsider the gospel, we think of
ways in which we know our sins,and others so often know our

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sins.
How will they believe us?
We know we don't have everyanswer.
We know we don't always havethe most compelling voice.
What will they find attractive?
Moses himself raised thosequestions in Exodus 3 and 4 when
God called him and told him togo and to speak to Pharaoh, the

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mightiest man in all the world.
The later prophets, they tooraised questions.
I'm too young, or I don't knowhow to speak, or how on earth
will this have effect?
And time and again, God wouldreveal to the prophet that God
brings life where none can beexpected.
Just like God with theseIsraelites had brought life

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where none could have beenexpected, taking a small group
of slaves, completelyoverwhelmed and utterly at the
whim of the mightiest people inthe world, the Egyptians.
And God, in display upondisplay of power and of
goodness, of his might and ofhis grace, has shown his

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capacity to humble even themightiest man in all the world,
and to lift up even the mostabject suffering of those
without any power to helpthemselves.
But we can forget.
We can fail to remember.
We can believe that today isdifferent.

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God did great things then, orGod blessed them over there, or
God had promises for thatcircumstance.
But here and now it's up to me.
Today and in this circumstance,the baton is in my hand.
And we can sometimes arrogantlypress ahead, feeling that we

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know what we're doing, just aswe can sometimes struggle to get
out of bed because we know thedisappointment and shame of
having failed one too manytimes.
And this passage in God'srebuke, how long will they not
remember the wondrous deeds Idid?
How long will they not believein me?

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Is a profound reminder thatwherever we find ourselves,
whomever we face and whatever wethink we ourselves are, we are
never the most interestingperson in the room.
God is there and God's promiseshave gone before us.
As we bring this to a close, weought to talk about Costco.

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I don't know what Costco is toyou.
There are many options.
I have teenage males in thehouse.
Costco is a reasonably cheapway to buy food in bulk and to
make.
It through these highmetabolism years.
For others, it's a prettystraightforward way to prepare

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for a dystopian future where youneed to hoard en masse and be
ready for whatever circumstance.
Some of you are cheap, but youlike a party, so it's a place
you can go and they will servehors d'oeuvres and let you
mingle.
Some love a bargain.
It's below market gas, and youcan get the propane tank filled

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for like half the cost ofanywhere else.
And while you're doing allthat, of course, you can have
your hot dog and drink for undertwo bucks.
And somehow they've designed away that one slice of pizza can
get you a thousand caloriesbefore you're done.
Costco is many things to manypeople.

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A membership card gets youaccess 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 metsomeone and and they really
thought that Costco was simply amembership to go to a hot dog

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cart.
Now that's good.
Hot dogs, they're great attimes.
It's a meal.
You're not gonna leave, youknow, needing a nap.
It's not so big that somehowyou're not gonna be able to get
on with your day, and it's abargain.
That's wonderful.
But how many things you wouldmiss if knowing they serve cheap

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hot dogs as you walk out thedoor, how many things you would
fail to enjoy?
How many other elements andneeds of life would you be
under-resourced and ill-equippedfor because all you thought of
your membership benefits wascheap hot dogs at the counter
over there?
Now, to squander the full rangeof benefits that a member gets

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at a place like Costco is notthe most grave thing in life.
God has laid out for you andfor me so many benefits.
God has in his word providednot just a meal for a moment,
but a grace for all of life.
And so we keep turning tonumbers and we keep reading of

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these stories so that hopefullylearning from those men and
women, adults and childrenwho've gone before us, we will
learn to remember and not toforget.
We will learn not to look firstat ourselves, our strengths, or
our obvious weaknesses, but toGod and all his many promises.

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We will look not to ouropposition and challenge, to our
struggle and its difficulties,though they're great, but we
will look to the one who hasworked wonders in Egypt and
brought life where none could beexpected.
And so we want to look at thispassage that we might remember

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and not forget.
We want to hear these wordsprayerfully, that we might meet
all the circumstances of lifearmed with all the promises of
God.
What a gift it is to knowthey're yes in Christ, that He
fulfills every single one ofthem and His word is good.

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What a sad travesty it would beif 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 GodHimself, prepared by Jesus

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Himself for no one but you, dearChristian, his people, the ones
upon whom his delight rests.
Let's consider those who'vegone before us, let's consider
the apostles who've gone beforeus, let's consider the days that
we ourselves have experiencedin the past.
And let's pray by his gracethat we might remember anew,

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that we might delight in hispromise, not in our strength, or
wallow in our weakness, that wemight walk well by faith.
Would you pray with me?
God, you alone are the God oflife.
You alone work wonders, givinglife where none could be

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expected.
We confess so often we lookaround us and we see grave
difficulties.
We look within us and we see awar that seems incessant and
intractable.
Help us to look at without.
Help us to look to you toremember the wondrous works that
you have done on our behalf.
Help us to look in your word tothe ways in which you, Lord,

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and you alone have promised away, a way to life abundant, a
way to life eternal.
We rejoice in Jesus as the yesand the amen to all your
promises.
Help us to know and delight ineach and every one of them, for

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it's in his name we pray.
Amen.