February 23, 2007

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Numbers 10-12

In 1958, my family arrived in New York from Africa for a year of furlough. At the time, our family consisted of my mother and father, and four of us boys ranging in age from 2 to 12. The first thing my father did when we arrived was to buy a car. It was a 1957 Plymouth sedan. We fit all of our stuff, and our family of six into that car and proceeded to drive right across the United States from New York on the east coast to Washington State on the west coast.

That was a very long trip! My youngest brother sat in the front with my Mom and Dad, which left the other three of us sharing the back seat. Because I was the youngest of the three, I was normally stuck in the middle. I think you can imagine the scene: “Are we there yet? When are we going to stop? I’m thirsty! I’m hungry! I have to go the bathroom! Mom, Jonny pinched me! It’s my turn to sit by the window! Lanny is on my side of the line! Make him share his comic book! Are we there yet? Jonny pinched me again!” All of our nerves were frayed. I remember one particular day when Dad got so exasperated with my oldest brother Jon that he stopped the car and made him get out. Then we all drove away and left him standing there beside the road! We went back and got him after about 5 minutes – but I think that stunned all of us into silence for at least a few miles.

Traveling together is stressful! It is hard work. And it rarely brings out the best in any of us. If traveling as a family by automobile is difficult, I think we can only guess at how difficult it must have been for the Israelites to travel as an entire nation across the desert. As we pick up the story of the Israelites in the Book of Numbers, they are on the road again. After about a year camping at the foot of Mt. Sinai, the day finally came when the cloud of God’s presence over the tabernacle lifted, the trumpets sounded and the people began to march again toward the Promised Land.

We are leapfrogging in earnest through the text now. We spent just one week in the Book of Leviticus, concentrating on Leviticus 10.  For the next few weeks we will be in the Book of Numbers. The book of Numbers is called that because it is full of numbers! It actually includes the record of two different censuses. The first is a census taken before the people left Sinai. The second, toward the end of the book, is a census taken just before the entered the Promised Land almost 40 years later. Between these two censuses, though, there is a fairly lengthy historical narrative in the middle of the book. That is where we will be focusing our attention.

Today we will be looking at Numbers 10 to 12, when the Israelites, at God’s instructions, begin their journey again. It is not a particularly happy section of Scripture. In fact, in these chapters we are told four times that “the anger of Yahweh was kindled.” Now let me ask you something. If you were to make a list of things that make God angry, what kinds of things would you write down? Don’t take the easy way out and just say, “Sin!” I mean, what kinds of specific behavior would you put in your list of things that make God angry? I suspect if most of us were given a question like that, we would probably list things like murder and other kinds of violence, various kinds of sexual immorality, maybe sins of oppression against the helpless and vulnerable and so on. And our lists would certainly be true. These kinds of things certainly do make God angry.

What is rather surprising about this section of Scripture is that the people did not engage in any of these kinds of sins. And yet four times we are told that God’s anger burned against them. What kinds of things did they do to make God angry? All of the sins mentioned in these chapters are sins of the heart and mind and of the tongue. They are sins of attitude and word, not overt action. And yet these attitudes and words made God angry!

There are actually three different incidents recorded in these chapters that we want to look at this morning. The first one is rather short and condensed, without a lot of detail. (Read Numbers 11:1-3). The sin is clearly identified. The people complained about their hardships. Like I said, there isn’t much detail. What were the hardships? What did they say? It is useless to try and speculate. All we know is that it made God angry and fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and burned among them, especially among the outskirts of the camp. It may be that that was where the complainers and malingerers gathered.

Do you think of complaining as sin? Is it something you would have put on your list of things that make God angry? I think it’s something to think about. Maybe that’s why we aren’t given more detail. We might be inclined to look at what the Israelites did and say, “Well, I haven’t complained like that!” and let ourselves off the hook. But with an open ended, rather cryptic story like this, we are forced to look at our attitudes and take them to the Lord and ask him to weigh them. Is this complaining? Is this the kind of complaining that makes you angry? The people complained about their hardships and God became angry.

The second incident takes up the rest of Numbers 11 and it gives us more detail to get our teeth into. First of all, we are told that this complaining started with “the rabble” in verse 4. Who were the rabble? The KJV translates it “mixed multitude.” When the Israelites left Egypt, there was a mixed multitude that came along with them. They may have been individuals who had intermarried with the Israelites, or been the offspring of mixed marriages, or possibly just been curious or attracted to what God was doing among the Israelites. While there were no doubt some true seekers and believers among them, it is clear that others had come along for their own reasons. In any case, it was among this group that a strong spirit of discontent arose and they began to crave the foods of Egypt. And it didn’t take long for this craving to spread.

Group dynamics and mob psychology are both fascinating areas of study. But what is most dramatic is how much more quickly a negative attitude will spread than a positive one. Within a very short period of time, the Israelites themselves started wailing: If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!

I must admit for many years when I read that description of the foods of Egypt, my instinctive reaction was, “Yuck! Who would miss foods like cucumbers and leeks and onions and garlic?” But having lived in the Middle East for almost 17 years, I now have more sympathy for their longings!

This complaining spread like wild fire throughout the camp. Verse 10 describes it this way: Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. It was everywhere and it made God angry! Yahweh became exceedingly angry!

What exactly was their sin this time? Once again it was complaining, but this time we can focus a little more specifically. I believe the heart of their sin this time was the sin of ingratitude! They went beyond simply craving for their favorite foods to disparaging the food which God was providing for them so faithfully. In fact, the text pauses and spends a whole paragraph describing the manna with which God fed the people every day in verses 7-9. This was God’s provision for their need. It could be prepared in a variety of ways. It was the bread that God sent down from heaven for them. But the people became so preoccupied with their craving that they despised God’s provision. They actually longed to return to Egypt. Look at the end of verse 21: …you have rejected Yahweh who is among you and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” Ingratitude is a sin that makes God angry. They were ready to turn their backs on all that God had done for them and go back to Egypt just for a change in diet! How quickly sin spreads and makes fools of us!

God’s response to this sin is once again to discipline them sharply. He does so with a form of poetic justice. Once again, he causes a migration of quails to fall on the camp. Not everyone realizes that God actually did this twice in the Biblical account. The first time was in the book of Exodus, shortly after the Israelites left Egypt. Now he does so again, but the results are not to the people’s liking. The quails are blown over the camp, and they are so numerous that the people gathered huge quantities and spread them out to dry and preserve them. But while they were still eating, the text says that God smote them with a plague. Whether this was a naturally occurring case of widespread food poisoning, or a divine act of God, in either case it was clearly God’s hand of judgment against them, and many died.

Are you ever guilty of the sin of ingratitude? Have you ever wanted something you didn’t have so badly that you were guilty of ignoring or even worse, despising the gifts and provision that God has given you? It is truly dangerous ground to stand on. God may give you what you ask for. You may get what you want, but I can promise you this: If you ask in the wrong way or with the wrong attitude, even if you get what you want, you won’t want what you get! In reflecting on this incident, the psalmist writes in Psalm 106:14-15: In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wasteland they put God to the test. So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease upon them. I think that is an accurate translation of the intent of the Hebrew text, but I must confess to a preference for the more literal rendering of the King James Version: “He gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul.” Beware the cravings of the soul which may lead to the sin of ingratitude.

The third incident in the text is the story we read in the Scripture reading this morning from Numbers 12. It is the story of Miriam and Aaron and their challenge to Moses’ leadership. The story starts a little strangely in Numbers 12:1: Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. That raises some questions for us. Is this referring to Zipporah, the wife that Moses had taken when he first came to Midian from Egypt? If so, why is she referred to as a Cushite, an area usually identified with the upper (southern) stretches of the Nile, probably in what is now the Nubian area of Sudan? Plus, why bring this up now when Moses has been married to her for almost 40 years. It is possible that she had only recently joined the camp. But it is more likely that Moses had taken a new wife, possibly following the death of Zipporah. Was this a case of racial discrimination? Or simply the jealousy that sometimes occurs in the blending of families?

All such speculation must remain just that. But in fact, Moses’ wife is just the lightning rod for what is in fact the key issue. The sin here is one of jealousy and envy. This is made clear in the text in verse 2: “Has Yahweh spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” What brought this to the surface after all this time? We may never know. But this was the real core issue. Miriam and Aaron felt they were getting short-changed of their share of the spotlight and public adulation. They were envious of Moses and his position as leader. They wanted more credit, more attention, more opportunity to shine.

This brings us to a rather puzzling verse, verse 3: Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than any one else on the face of the earth. What makes this verse puzzling is that Moses is credited with being the author of all 5 books of the Pentateuch, and therefore of this verse. It seems a very strange verse for a truly humble man to write concerning himself. Kind of like the man who wrote a book and titled it: Humility And How I Achieved It.

There are several possible ways to resolve this difficulty. One possibility is that this parenthesis was added by an editor or the person who assembled the books of Moses in their final form. This is not that difficult to accept in view of the fact that the final chapter of Deuteronomy describes Moses’ death, and therefore it is very unlikely that Moses himself wrote that chapter. So the same writer, possible Joshua himself, might have penned this testimonial to his leader and mentor. Another possibility is that Moses did write it, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that the Spirit’s clear prompting overrode his own natural reluctance to pen such a statement. A third rather intriguing interpretation was suggested in one of the sources I checked. That gives a different cast or flavor to the word “humble” and goes back to some of the connotations of the root word such as “depressed” or “downcast.” Thus the verse is not describing Moses’ humility but rather his distress and depression at being criticized by his own brother and sister. Truly there are few things so painful to a leader as being challenged or criticized by those close to you.

Whatever our interpretation of that verse, what is truly remarkable here is how quickly and vigorously God himself comes to Moses’ defense. He immediately summoned all three of them to the Tabernacle. He then came down in the cloud to the entrance of the Tabernacle and specifically called to just Aaron and Miriam. He then paid highest tribute to Moses and his relationship with Moses. “All other prophets I speak to in visions and dreams and through riddles and metaphors. But with Moses I speak plainly, face to face. He is my faithful servant. How dare you speak against him?” And for the fourth time in these chapters we read the words, “the anger of Yahweh burned.”

When God withdrew his presence, Miriam was revealed before the Israelites with her skin white and disfigured with advanced leprosy! When Aaron saw this, he pleaded with Moses for mercy. Moses in turn prayed to God. And God relented and healed her, but stipulated that she must remain outside the camp for the normal period of cleansing before she can rejoin the camp. We might wonder why only Miriam was struck with leprosy. The simplest answer is that she was the driving force and leader behind this criticism of Moses, as indicated by the fact that her name comes first in verse 1. In any case, God did heal and restore her, but only after having the whole camp of Israel remain in place for a week to ponder the lessons of what they had seen.

So as we join them in pondering the lessons of these chapters, what do we learn? Why were these events recorded in Scripture? We are not left to our own speculations on this subject as the New Testament answers the question clearly in I Corinthians 10. Here, in recounting some of the events of Israel’s history, Paul writes in verse 6: Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. And then in verse 11: These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

The Christian life is often compared to a journey or a race. We are called upon to run the race that is put before us and finish our course. The Christian life is often described as a “walk”. And I don’t thing there is anything in the Bible that should cause us to conclude that it is an easy journey or a simple race. We are told that we will need endurance, and we will experience hardship, and we will need patience and have to make sacrifices to finish the race.

As we run our race, I think it is helpful for us to have these accounts written down as warnings for us, so that we will know what to avoid on the journey and what it is that displeases God. We as Christians are quick to condemn the “sins of the flesh”, as well we should be. But we are too quick to excuse or overlook the sins of attitude, of wrong thoughts and hurtful words which can so quickly mar our testimony and our fellowship in the Body of Christ.

Paul puts these matters into a New Testament context in Philippians 2:14-16: Do everything without complaining or arguing. (Does that bring Numbers 11 and 12 to mind?) …so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life…

When our kids were growing up, we used to use the acronym DRA. You know what that stands for, don’t you? Dirty Rotten Attitude. Unfortunately, all of us as Christians are still susceptible to the sins that make up a DRA. So let us be warned and let us examine ourselves. Do you have a DRA? Are you a complainer, constantly whining at every hardship along the way? Are you guilty of the sin of ingratitude, so filled with cravings for what you do not have that you despise the many blessings that God has poured out upon you? Are you consumed with envy, jealous of the compliments others receive and the applause that is showered on them? All of these are sins of the heart or the mind or the tongue. Because of that they may seem less harmful than other sins. But don’t be fooled. They will break your fellowship with other believers more quickly than many other kinds of sin. And they will destroy your fellowship with God as well. Because make no mistake about it. These sins still make God angry.

So examine yourself this morning. Are there some things you need to confess to God and for which you need to seek his cleansing?