GO SLOW, STAY LOW, DON’T BLOW! (NUMBERS 20:1-13)
What bothers you? Who gets under your skin? Why do those buttons go off?
Many years ago, Robert Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral founder, boarded a flight from Los Angeles to New York. His request to hang up his clerical robe was turned down by an attendant. Schuller’s attorney said the flight attendant told his client that hanging up the garment violated the airline’s rules. Schuller’s offer of a compromise was, however, accepted by a supervisor, which irritated the attendant.
Later, when Schuller’s request for fruit without cheese was turned down by the same attendant, he went to the plane’s kitchen to ask another attendant. On the way to the kitchen, Schuller in some way touched the same attendant, who jumped back and said, “If you touch me again, I will call the police.” An airline representative said Schuller “made physical contact with the flight attendant and the flight attendant was injured.” The flight attendant claimed that Schuller either pushed him or put him in a headlock, giving him whiplash-like symptoms.
Upon landing in New York, Schuller was booked, handcuffed and detained for up to five hours and the FBI questioned three other flight attendants and at least five other passengers. The flight attendant filed a $5 million suit, claiming he suffered neck and back pain during the incident and has been too traumatized to return to work.
Poor Schuller. Though he pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor in criminal court, he had to give a public apology, pay a fine of $1,100 for the cost of the investigation and accept six months of supervision during which he refrained from breaking any more laws. In return, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the misdemeanor assault charges against the minister. Schuller’s insurance company settled the civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum (Los Angeles Times, 8/28/97).
Moses lost his temper big time one instance - he was annoyed, provoked and offended. The price was heavy: he was denied entrance into the Promised Land. The reality of the previous generation’s dying, including the death of Miriam (Num 20:1), appeared to bother Moses somewhat, but the back-breaker was the next generation’s conduct. Like their predecessors, the later generation moaned about the lack of physical resources, gathered for an emotional group confrontation and lashed out like the previous generation.
What does God want us to do when we are upset, frustrated or tired? Why is it better at times to keep some things inside than to pour it all out? How can we honor God before others even when we are ready to scream or explode?
Offer Gentle Words When People are Stubborn and Troublesome
20:1 In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. 2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. 3 They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! 4 Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!” 6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses, 8 “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.” So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” (Num 20:1-10)
The Los Angeles Times (9/19/95) had a fascinating article on trigger words, or words that will push people’s buttons. Everyone is supposed to have at least one that sets him or her off, and they usually start with the pronoun “You.”
The shorter triggers include “You’re cheap” or “You’re overreacting.” The stinging longer ones are “You’re just unrealistic,” “You are hysterical” and “You just don’t understand.” People of all ages have their least favorite remarks. Preteens and teens hate the moniker “Kiddo,” adults dislike hearing even sensible advice such as “Act as an adult” or “You need to grow up” offered to them and spouses never fail to react when the other half say to them, “You are just like you mother/ father.”
Thomas Jefferson say, “When angry, count to ten, if very angry, count to 100.”
God instructed Moses privately, patiently and particularly what to do: take the staff, gather the people and instruct the rock. However, Moses took the people’s complain pompously, personally and painfully. His words were strong, rash and combative.
The classic advice “Don’t say anything if you don’t have anything good to say” applied perfectly to Moses. He did not have to oppose, chide or even address the budding grownups. The order Moses received was to order the rock to work, the rock would freely flow water and the Lord’s name would be glorified. However, Moses had other ideas when he saw the gathered assembly. The Hebrew word for the youthful generation’s “gathering” (v 2) was the same word for the only other occasion a group had gathered to confront Moses – the “gathering” of Korah and company of the previous generation (Num 16:3, 19, 42). Further, the only other occurrence of the Hebrew word for “quarrel” (v 3) was when the former generation quarreled with Moses at Marah, also over water (Ex 17:2). Keil and Delitzsch suggested that the present incident occurred in the last of the forty years of wanderings at the same place that the previous generation was judged. It was a worst case of déjà vu and history repeating itself for Moses.
So Moses readied and unleashed his own trigger word on the youthful Israelites: “Rebel” (v 10), which was used for the first time in the Bible. Moses’ label to the Israelites was harsh, unnecessary and childish. Moses unfairly gave the new generation no chance at all, laid the sins of the fathers on them and accused them of what they were not guilty of. He had no sympathy for the Israelites at their first offense, setback and dissent. The spite, the gloom and the ill of the prophet affected and blindsided him in the worst unforeseen way.
Moses and Aaron next used an insolent “we” personal pronoun (v 10). The Israelites quarreled with Moses (v 3), but ultimately their “quarrel” (v 13) was with the Lord and their “rebellion” was against the Spirit of God (Ps 106:33). It was the Lord’s name, character and face to save, if any, but Moses internalized and personalized the attack when he felt he was betrayed, shamed and provoked, resulting in the need to say something, be one up, or have the last word. Psalms 106:33 discloses that “rash words” came from Moses’ lips as a result.
Overcoming Grudging Ways If You are Sick and Tired
11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. (Num 20:11)
A friend (M Wu) remembered the wise words a seminary professor gave to him and other graduates entering into the ministry more than two decades ago. The exhortation was: “Go slow, stay low, don’t blow!”
Someone quipped, “Letting off steam will get you more steamed.” In a pair of experiments at Iowa State University, people who took out their anger on a punching bag during a competitive computer game were twice as likely to lash out at rivals than other angry subjects that did not act out their anger on a punching bag (Los Angeles Times 6/7/99).
When Oregon’s Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, the energy released was equal to 500 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs (Volcano, Time-Life Books 1982 Alexandria, Virginia p. 142). The mountain hurled out 275 million tons of rock and airborne ash, and the 500 degrees Fahrenheit heat shot some 60,000 feet skyward at 200-335 mph (Volcanoes: Earth’s Awakening, Maplewood, NJ: Hammond Inc. 1980 p. 159). The eruption left a crater 1,700 feet in diameter and 858 feet deep (p. 146). (Source: US Geological Survey, Volcanoes of the World, Smithsonian Institute on USN&WR 5/15/95)
Like a volcano, Moses literally “blew his top.” He was as untamed, as unsafe and as unregulated as any explosive device or live explosive. The outburst from his pent-up frustrations was devastating, demeaning and detrimental. Regrettably, Moses paid a heavy price for his disobedience. Instead of speaking to the rock, he misused the staff in his hand and abused the rock of Christ’s presence (1 Cor 10:4). He vented his fury, unleashed his anger and transferred his rage on an object that testified to God’s presence, power and provision.
The Hebrew word used for Moses’ actions was not “strike” or “beat,” but “smote,” the word that is traditionally used for exterminating God’s enemies such as the Egyptians, their land (Ex 3:20, 9:25, 12:13) and their firstborn (Ex 12:29, Num 3:13, 8:17) in the old country and the Amalekites and the Canaanites in the Promised Land (Num 14:45). Unwittingly, Moses treated the budding youngsters as enemies, and not as neighbor, sibling or family. The hand of Moses that was synonymous with deliverance and victory was stained with enmity and malice.
Moses listened to his heart, and not his head; lifted his hand vehemently and not victoriously; looked crossly, and not compassionately, at the changing guard, their growing pains and awkward transition. Patience, persisting or pleading with them were no longer options offered on the table by their leader. In the end, Moses did not honor God as holy (v 12).
Obey God’s Will for He is Strong and Trustworthy
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” 13 These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among them (Num 20:12-13).
Someone once said, “Whatever gets your goat gets your attention. Whatever gets your attention gets your time. Whatever gets your time gets you. Whatever gets you becomes your master. Take care, lest a little thing horn in and get your goat. (William A. Ward, Quotable Quotations 24, Victor Books, 1989)
All of us have anger; it’s a matter of speed – how fast; scale - how far; and schedule – how frequent.
In “The Wit and Wisdom of Forest Gump,” author Winston Groom composes up a list of sayings that would have made Forest Gump proud. One of them is, “Nobody ever gets into trouble by keepin’ his mouth shut.”
A church father, the abbot Agatho, said, “If an angry man were to raise the dead, because of his anger he would not please God.” (Macmillan Book of Earliest Christian Meditations 119, Edited by F. Forrester Church and Terence J. Mulry, NY: Macmillan Pub Co, 1989).
The verdict from God was startling, unexpected and final. The offenders were Moses and Aaron, and not Israel (v 12 - “you” did not). God turned the tables on Moses with another shocking disclosure later. The second time the word “rebel” appeared scripturally was when God contradicted Moses with the assertion that the true rebels in this instance were Moses and Aaron (v 24), and not the emerging generation. Moses’ disobedience, and not his opponents’ disobedience, paralleled the old generation in the way he failed to see. The only other negative “not trust” (v 12) assertion in the wanderings pointed to the earlier generation’s refusal to enter the Promised Land (Deut 1:32).
Hudson Taylor at 33, before going to China as a pig-tailed, ground-breaking, foreign-looking outsider, made up his mind to go to China with these words: “If we are obeying the Lord, the responsibility rests with Him, not with us.”
Moses received God’s special revelation, not general revelation. He heard directly and specifically, not indirectly or loosely, from God, but he dismissed what God instructed, departed from the text and drew attention to himself. The Israelites’ struggle with the Lord (v 13) became personal to Moses and turned into his struggle (v 3). The directive to the rock then deteriorated into a lecture on the people. An occasion to praise, dignify and glorify the Lord turned ugly and worsened into a criticism, a chastisement and a condemnation of the people. Moses needlessly turned a positive learning experience for the inexperienced leaders into a textbook case of rebellion.
Moses presented God as an angry God, not a holy God, no different from the dark, intense and brooding person he had become. The Hebrew text said the Israelites were “striving” and not “rebelling” against the Lord. To their credit, the youthful Israelites never “strove” again with the Lord and the Hebrew word for “quarrel” (v 13) did not appear ever again in the wilderness. God’s sober lesson to the present generation at the waters of Meribah was a ray of hope to them; they were not as lost as Moses thought they were and they were not the losers like the old generation were.
Conclusion: The Bible says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity” (1 Tim 4:12). Be careful of painting or tarring everyone with the same brush. The Chinese caution against “using a single rod to hit a boat of people.” Do you handle things properly, peacefully and patiently, not take things proudly, personally and punitively? Do you lash out at the people that are seemingly attacking you, talking about you or banding together against you? Do you trust in God or oneself when dealing with difficult problems or people?
Victor Yap
Other sermons in the series and other sermon series:
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