BETWEEN THE NUMBERS
CONFORMED OR TRANSFORMED?
Numbers 14:26-45
***This message tagteam preached with Doug (layperson in our church)
-Louis Zamperini was a WW2 pilot who flew a B-24 bomber.
-Because of a mechanical failure his plane crashed over the ocean in enemy territory.
-He and a co-pilot survived on a raft for 47 days at sea before they were captured by the Japanese navy.
-Zamperini spent two years in a prison camp where he was beaten, starved and mistreated until he was released at the end of the war.
-When he returned home he immediately began having trouble with PTSD and alcohol.
-He was hanging out at bars, chasing women, and struggling with horrible nightmares from his prison camp abuse.
-His life had begun to spiral downward...his wife was threatening to divorce him...
-Then one night his wife Cynthia went to hear a young preacher named Billy Graham.
-When she returned Louis knew instantly that something had changed.
-She invited him to go back the next night and he didn’t want to but he was compelled by this sudden change in his wife.
-He went and listened and when Billy Graham asked everyone to close their eyes and pray...Zamperini got up and bolted from the meeting.
-But he went back the second night and listened to the message, and when it came time to pray he started to bolt again but he stopped when he heard Billy Graham mention people “at the end of their rope.”
-That night he gave his life to Jesus Christ.
-This man went on to lead an amazing life as a missionary...great story. But what caught my attention is the immediate radical obedience that followed his conversion.
-Immediately he gave up alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, and miraculously he said all of his nightmares about prison camp stopped.
-When people give their lives to Jesus the process of transformation begins.
-We begin walking a different path than the people around us.
-We are immediately added to the family of God, but we begin the process of changing into the men and women that God has called us to be.
-Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
-In our Numbers series today we’re going to see a contrast between two groups of people.
-There were 10 spies who gave a negative report about the Promised Land and the crowds immediately joined right in, and all of Israel was weeping and whining that they were going to die.
-But two men did not conform. They didn’t care what the crowds was doing or saying.
-These two men, Joshua and Caleb, had been delivered from Egypt.
-They had been helpless slaves, but by God’s grace had become mighty men of faith.
-While some were forsaking God and calling for a return for Egypt...these men were ready to follow God wherever it lead.
-They had experienced the power of God in their lives and they were ready to follow God whatever the cost.
VERSES 26-30 (Doug)
-How many of us have ever given into complaining when things haven’t gone our way or when we see things in the world we don’t like?
-Raise your hand (notice my hand is up as well!) if you’ve been a complainer or whiner about the way you’ve been treated, or when work wasn’t going well, or when you didn’t like a political leader, or when you didn’t get something you wanted!
-That’s what the people of Israel were doing: In verses 26 & 27 we see that
26 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: 27 “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.
-Unfortunately, one of the hallmarks of being human seems to be that we often are guilty of whining or complaining about the way our lives or our world is going.
-What is also the case is that we are often influenced so much by people around us, that if others are complaining, it’s very easy for us to fall into that same attitude.
-Most of you know that I taught high school for 31 years, and I have to admit that teachers can be just as whiny as any other group of people!
-A lot of times when I went into the faculty room to eat lunch, I heard my fellow teachers whining about all sorts of things, ranging from too many meetings, to students who were not doing their homework, to the terrible decisions made by administrators.
-And I’ve got to confess that I would often find myself joining in this pity party along with everyone else.
-However, it got to the point that several of my friends and I decided this just wasn’t what we wanted to be part of, and we jumped ship and began eating in another room, essentially starting a no-whining at lunch club!
-We decided we didn’t want to just do what everyone else was doing and sit around being negative.
-You know, it was a breath of fresh air!
-It had been easy to become just as whiny as the everyone else when there were so many negative comments being made, but it was also easy to be positive when the people I ate with were positive as well!
-Complaining was just as common in the days of Israel’s trip out of Egypt to the promised land as it is today.
-These people were just as guilty of complaining as we are. If you go back to Numbers chapter 11, the people had been led out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of a complete lack of freedom, and had been miraculously saved from the Egyptian army which was coming after them when God parted the Red Sea.
-God had taken great care of them during their travels, providing water and food in their journey through pretty desert-like lands.
-However, despite the miraculous provision of manna to feed the thousands of Israelites, the people began to complain.
-After all, there were only so many ways you could prepare manna, right?
The lyrics of a song I used to listen to, titled “So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt” talked about their non-varied diet of manna, including such delicacies such as
“manna waffles,
manna burgers,
Manna bagels,
fillet of manna,
Manna patties,
and bamanna bread.”
-You get the picture!!
-So the Israelites began to whine about not having all the lovely foods they had back in Egypt; they missed their meat, fish, melons, onions, and garlic!
-And in the process, they failed to see what God was really doing.
-He was working to turn them into a people set apart from others, a people with an identity of their own, a people holy and in sync with God Himself.
GOD WAS TRYING TO MAKE ISRAEL INTO HIS OWN SPECIAL PEOPLE, even taking care of them in a very special, different way by providing for them on their journey.
-But did they see this? No. They seemed to just want to go back to the same old life they had before, not recognizing that it really was inferior to the life God was trying to lead them to.
-You’d think that a lesson like that would sink in—but no!
-As Erik talked about last Sunday, these people had begun complaining when the scouts came back from the promised land, saying that it was obvious that God had led them out into the desert just to let them die, and that it would be better turn around and go back to Egypt!
-Despite all the promises of God and the great things He’d done already for them, these people could not see what God was trying to make of them
-It seemed easier to them just to stay with what they knew, though it wasn’t best.
-It was as if they had two choices: they could trust God at His word, risking going into the unknown, or they could fall back into a life that was familiar, forgetting that it wasn’t all that great.
-Unfortunately, these people that God tried to turn into a great nation, seemed to choose what they thought was the easiest option, and so they continued to whine together in protest of God’s direction for them.
-God is disappointed when His people don’t trust Him.
-And sometimes, to prove His point, God may even give us what we think we want , perhaps so we can learn that it’s not the best.
In verses 28-29 God tells Moses His judgment:
28 So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say: 29 In this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.
-Uh-oh!! He gives them what the people themselves said would happen—anyone who was 20 or more years old would not get to see the promised land, but would die before they got there.
-So because of their lack of faith, because they didn’t believe God would provide for them, because of their complaining, because they didn’t trust him....they missed out on what should have been the absolute greatest thing they could have experienced!
ISRAEL REJECTED THEIR NEW IDENTITY WHILE CLINGING ON TO THEIR OLD ONE.
-Ironically, they ended up dying outside the Promised Land just like others who were not God’s people.
-How about us?
-Are we the kind of people who trust God is making us into the people He wants us to be even when things aren’t going our way?
-Are we people who embrace God’s new identity for us, and follow through on His plans? Or are we people who are easily influenced by others around us and desire to stay in our old life, conforming to the world, and who don’t allow God to work His will in our lives?
-Luckily for the people of Israel, there were some who did not conform to the complaints and distrust for God that so many were voicing.
In verse 30 of our chapter, God says:
30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
VERSES 31-25 (Erik)
-It’s interesting that God keeps highlighting Joshua and Caleb in this story.
-At first glance they do seem like the “heroes” of this tale.
-But upon, further consideration...were they really that impressive?
-After all they saw God do, is their faith really that exceptional?
-Many of us think that we’d follow God anywhere if we could see what they saw God do.
-I might be wrong about this, but I don’t think their faith in God was the most impressive thing about these two men.
-The most impressive thing to me is the faith of the these two men, in the midst of a multitude of doubters.
JOSHUA AND CALEB HAD STRONG FAITH IN A NATION OF DOUBTERS.
-When everyone else was saying, “We must have gotten this wrong....”
-When everyone else was saying, “We’ve made a mistake…”
-When everyone else was whining and complaining….
-When everyone else was saying, (2 million people saying)…”We don’t stand a chance”
-2 men stood up and said “With God on our side, we can do this thing!”
-It’s alarming to watch how quickly the crowds turned on God in this story of Israel’s Exodus.
-They worshipped God at the Passover meal, then they were worshipping a golden calf.
-They praised him at the Red Sea crossing, then they complained about the food.
-They depended on God one moment, doubted him the next...but that’s how crowds go.
-But Joshua and Caleb didn’t seemed concerned with the crowd, or what the crowd was thinking.
-They didn’t conform to the will or whims of the crowd.
-They didn’t seem to care that the crowd wanted to kill them.
-They cared about what God had said, what God had done, what God had promised and they aligned themselves with God...and were ready to face whatever came their way.
-What about us? We may not be on a national stage.
-We may not have whole crowds that listen to us. But are we just out there going with the flow, or are we going with Jesus?
-We’ve all been inspired by Christians who take a stand against something wrong.
-Many of us have been shocked when we realized that our strong faith (in some situation) has turned the tide in our family or at work.
-But we’ve also seen the other side when we found it way to easy to just go with the flow.
-We’ve been shocked to find ourselves, or others, doing something that doesn’t match our beliefs.
-We all have moments when we conform, and moments when we’re transformed.
-It boils down to this: When we’re deciding which way to go or what to do
-WE MUST EACH ASK OURSELVES, “WHO AM I FOLLOWING?”
-I was raised in the 80s where we were taught to “just say no” to drugs.
-But our culture has slowly starting shifting its attitude toward certain drugs.
-And I suspect that marijuana will be legalized this year when it’s time to vote.
-The crowd says, “It’s just weed, what’s the big deal?”
-I’m not going to be angry if this passes and people start lighting up.
-Frankly, I’m not surprised that people in our society want a mind-numbing escape from life’s problems and pain.
-Whether it’s legal or not...is not really the issue for us. Is it?
-I suspect there are Christians who will suddenly change their minds about smoking pot when the majority suddenly changes the law.
-But if something is wrong it’s wrong.
-We could probably think of some things that are legal...but wrong!
-A bunch of people banding together and deciding that something wrong should be legalized...shouldn’t really change anything for us.
-But when the crowd speaks people are often swayed.
-When everyone else is doing something...why can’t we?
-When the majority of people says something is ok...isn’t it ok?
-That depends on who you are. Are you a follower who conforms to every trend and tendency of the people around you?
-Or...are you someone who follows Jesus in spite of what the crowd is doing? In spite of what the crowd is saying. In spite of...
-God seems surprisingly harsh toward the crowd in Numbers but surprisingly generous to Joshua and Caleb. He says to the crowd:
31 “‘You said your children would be carried off as plunder. Well, I will bring them safely into the land, and they will enjoy what you have despised. 32 But as for you, you will drop dead in this wilderness.
-The crowd said lets elect new leaders! Let’s kill the people who disagree with us!
-Lets go back to Egypt! Let’s go back to what we know!
34 “‘Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins. Then you will discover what it is like to have me for an enemy.’ 35 I, the Lord, have spoken! I will certainly do these things to every member of the community who has conspired against me. They will be destroyed here in this wilderness, and here they will die!”
-It’s sad that these people never realized their potential.
-It’s tragic that they never got to see what could have been.
-And there are many people...for whom Christ died...having the same experience.
-There are people who’ve received forgiveness from Jesus...but are still out running with the crowds.
-There are people who have the promise of heaven but they’re still living with the heathens.
-There are people who have a potential in Christ, that they’ve never even considered...but instead of fighting to take hold of that...they’re settling for what is cheap and common and ordinary.
-The apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:12, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”
-It’s a fight to go with Jesus. It’s a fight to shed the influence of the crowd.
-Each day we must determine to press on ahead, to forsake lesser thing, to dispense with worldly pursuits, and to keep stepping forward.
-And when we do that...we experience the blessings of God.
-When we step forward in faith he meets us there...and so we step forward again...and he meets us there again...and slowly we begin to learn to trust his lead.
-We leave the crowd behind and begin to experience the transformation of our souls.
-Those faithless Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years, but the 10 faithless spies suffered a worse fate.
36 The ten men Moses had sent to explore the land—the ones who incited rebellion against the Lord with their bad report— 37 were struck dead with a plague before the Lord. 38 Of the twelve who had explored the land, only Joshua and Caleb remained alive.
VERSES 39-45 (Doug)
In the last section of this chapter, the key is to look at these two men that God had exempted from the punishment of the people and to note their response to the situation at hand.
-As we saw earlier, of the 12 spies sent to scout out the promised land, only Joshua and Caleb had had stood up publicly and tried to champion the need to follow God’s will and to go take the land
-They hadn’t merely stood by and watched as the other 10 spies told the people that there was no way that they would ever be able to conquer the people in the land because they were too big and strong.
-They stood up in front of the people of Israel and said “we can do this—we can take possession of the land as long as we trust God and are led by Him.”
-They warned the people not to rebel against God, and encouraged them to not be afraid, because “the Lord is with us!”
-Now one thing to note here is that during that time and culture, standing up and going against public opinion was riskier than it is today, at least here in the United States!
-Today, if we disagree with decisions being made in our culture, or we see something we are in opposition to going on, we can voice our opinion because we have freedom of speech.
-We can do that, knowing that probably the worst consequences we might suffer from doing so would be someone putting us down, ridiculing us, saying we’re stupid, etc. Yes, it’s true that words can hurt.
-But Joshua and Caleb lived in a different time and culture—the possible consequences for taking their public stance were much more dangerous – remember in verse 10 of this chaepter, there was talk amongst the people about stoning them to death.
-Despite that, Joshua and Caleb had stood up, publicly, verbally, and bravely for what they believed was right, trusting God.
-What about us? Are there times today when we need to go against public opinion or what others do, and speak out, despite what others think?
-There are numerous examples of people who have done just that.
-What about people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela, both of whom stood up, demonstrated, and resisted even in the face of threats and violence and possible imprisonment in their crusades for racial equality?
-What about people such as John Wycliffe, a 14th century theologian. Who is probably best remembered for translating scriptures.
-He believed that the Bible should be available to people in their own language, and translated the Latin Bible into common English.
-He was persecuted for his stand against the authority of the pope.
-His persecution went way beyond his death. His body was even dug up and burned along with many of his writings.
-And what about Christians today who live in countries where Christians are persecuted, yet still tell others about Jesus even when it may cost them their homes, their freedom, or even their lives?
-How would we act if we lived in Iraq or Syria, where ISIS tells Christians to leave, become Muslims and denounce Jesus, or be killed?
-As Winston Churchill once said, You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
-In the last verses of chapter 14, Joshua and Caleb’s responses took a different approach.
-First of all, God wasn’t finished with the 10 spies who had influenced the rest of the people into believing they couldn’t conquer the land.
-We’re told that all ten of them died from a plague sent by God.
-This actually led to a turnaround by the people of Israel—earlier they had said “we won’t go because God won’t be with us” and now that God has said they won’t make it into the promised land, they decide (maybe because they were scared by the spies’ deaths, to go ahead and go into the promised land and conquer it.
-These people, who had not listened to God in the first place, now seem to be almost speaking as if they are God’s voice, trying to justify doing something He had just told them He would not let them do!
-It kind of reminds me of sometimes when a national tragedy strikes, and many people who don’t normally give God the time of day are suddenly speaking about how this is God’s special land and that He will save us from more tragedy.
-Of course, it also takes little time before they seem to forget about God again...
-But Moses quickly reminds these people that by going into the Promised Land in attack mode, they would be right back to rebelling against the Lord again, since He had already told them that none of them would get to the Promised Land except for the young.
-In fact, Moses warns them, in verses 41 to 43, saying,
41 “Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed!42 Do not go up, because the LORD is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies,43 for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the LORD, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”
-Nevertheless, the people were determined to go through with this despite the warning. Now what do you imagine that Moses, Joshua, and Caleb were thinking as they see the people once again about to disobey God?
-Would they be angry? Sad? Disappointed? Frustrated?
-What do you suppose it was like for them to know that the direction the people were choosing was wrong?
-And what do you suppose their response would be?
-Would they stand up and try to verbally fight against it happening like they had done earlier when the 10 spies had convinced the people not to go into the promised land? Would they try to “rally the troops” against this new bad direction?
-Once again Joshua and Caleb would not go with the crowd.
-However, this time the response of Joshua and Caleb is the exact opposite of their earlier response.
-This time they didn’t stand up and fight.
-This time they simply chose not to join in with what they knew was wrong.
-They didn’t conform to their society’s bad choice the first time, and stood up and publicly fought against it.
-And this time they didn’t conform to their society’s bad choice, but by choosing not to involve themselves in what they knew was wrong.
-There is no record of Joshua and Caleb going with the rest of the people to try and conquer the Promised Land.
-Why? Because they chose not to be a part of something that was clearly not in God’s will.
-Now even if we chose not to read the next verses, couldn’t we guess the outcome?
-The last two verses of the chapter tell us that the people went to battle to try and conquer the Promised Land, and were soundly whipped!
-So isn’t it true that we also have two courses of action when it comes to opposing things we see in our society that we know are wrong?
-Sometimes we need to stand up and champion the truth, and fight hard to convince others.
-There are some moral issues that are so important that we have to say something and try to do something about, and by doing so we may actually change society’s direction, or at least we will be a strong witness of the truth and draw some people to it.
-At first, especially when we’re young or inexperienced in our faith, this may seem hard to do.
-But as we mature in Christ, it becomes easier to take this kind of action.
-On the other hand, sometimes we need to simply choose not to take part in what we know is wrong.
-This approach may be frustrating, because sometimes it means we will see people go in different directions, even when we know the outcomes will be negative.
-Yet in not taking part, we obey God, and may also be a great witness to others that might influence them to see the truth.
CLOSING -ERIK
-In 1955, Sam Phillips sold a small recording company to RCA records for $25,000.
-The deal included an exclusive contract with one particular young artist.
-$25,000 was a lot of money back then and this seemed like a great deal at the time.
-There is no way he could have known that this singer would go on to sell more than 1 billion records worldwide.
-Sam Phillips gave away the royalty rights to a Elvis Presley for $25,000 dollars.
-He gave away something very valuable for a small amount.
-That’s what Israel did here in Numbers. They wanted to trad something of great value for a pittance.
-Sadly, as Christians we often do the same thing.
-God wants to transform us into the person we never thought we could be.
-He wants to bless us beyond what we can imagine.
-He wants to give us an abundant life but we often sell that for what is cheap and common.
-We take what is amazing, and supernatural, and extraordinary, and trade it in for what everyone else had.
-And in the process we miss out on the Promiseland.
-We never see or experience what our lives could have been.
Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
