Numbers 11:24-13:33, Mark 14:22-52, Psalm 52:1-9, Proverbs 11:1-3
Today is the ninth day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is fantastic to be here with you today, as we gather to take the next step forward together. And as always, the next step leads us to the place where we left off, and that will lead us back into the Book of Numbers. Today, we will read Numbers chapter 11 verse 24 through 13 verse 33. And just by way of reminder, we are in the wilderness with the children of Israel who are complaining about having to eat manna, and Moses had been complaining about having to do the job that he’s doing of leading these people. It is a burden that is crushing him. And so, we pick up the story Numbers 11:24 through 13:33.
Commentary:
Okay, so, yesterday in the Book of Numbers, we talked about obstacles and hardship. The children of Israel in the wilderness, complaining about having to eat manna and longing for what they used to get to eat when they were in bondage and slavery to the Egyptians. Moses, as the leader, being crushed by the weight of responsibility that he is facing in the wilderness. And so, both of them end up crying out, but as we see in today’s reading, God brought them quail and so they had so much meat to eat, couldn’t eat it. And we saw God being exasperated in and the whole situation because there’s a lesson being taught in the wilderness and that is that they are utterly dependent upon God, and that is a good, profoundly good thing because they are safe and the obstacles and endurance that they are having to learn is generated by their sense of lack, of what they don’t have, and how they feel unsafe and incapable of meeting their own desires. Why would that be exasperating to God? It’s because they are safe and they are cared for, what they are enduring is a fight within themselves. Can they truly trust God in the wilderness, or do they need to start thinking about making their own arrangements? We face the same things brothers and sisters, we face the same things ourselves and when we start trying to make our own arrangements, instead of following the safe path that God has for us through the wilderness, we end up staying in the wilderness, as we will soon see. Until the children of Israel truly leave behind their identity in slavery and put their full and absolute hope and trust in God, they can’t get forward. And we see that one playing out today because we actually reached the Promised Land today. We have been working toward getting to the Promised Land since the book of Genesis. Like we have been on a long journey to get to this point, and here we are. Everything is ready, the people know the customs, they know the laws, they know the rituals, they know the holidays. They know what they’re supposed to do, they know what they’re supposed to do every day and it’s baked into their culture. Everything is reminding them of who they are and where they’re going and who God is, and even with all of this, here we are at the precipice of the Promised Land. And spies are sent into the land, one from each tribe to go and spy out the land and we kind of travel, we don’t have a ton of narrative about their journeys, but we have some and we know that they went in, cut down some of the fruit in the Valley of Eshcol. That goes back to the book of Genesis. In fact, I remember we were going to the book of Genesis, and remember this place, remember this, remember the Valley of Eshcol here. Remember this because we’re gonna come back here and now we’re back here. The Valley of Eshcol is where the cave of Machpelah is. The cave of Machpelah is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried. It’s been centuries since the children of Israel have been anywhere near there. But on their journeys, spying out the land, they went through there and they would’ve been able to see this is true, this isn’t just stuff of lore and legend. This is true, this is our origin story. And then they come back, and they give a report. We can’t possibly take this land. We can’t do it. There are giants there. There are fortified cities there, it’s a beautiful land, flowing with milk and honey but we can’t take it, we look like grasshoppers to them. This is on the heels of God miraculously providing meat after their complaints in the wilderness. And we can work back all of God’s leadership in their lives, since he brought them out of the land of Egypt in miraculous fashion. He has been providing and sustaining them ever since. Even though at times they had to actually trust Him because, at times, they had run out of their own ability and here we are at the threshold, once again, they have determined that they’re not safe to trust in God and in their own strength, they cannot conquer this Land of Promise. We’ll have to see how that plays out. But we could look in our own lives and see how that plays out. We just have this idea that obstacles and hardship are always bad things they are labeled bad, they bring bad emotions. We associate hard and bad emotions to them and so, we try to avoid in every possible way that we can, anything that makes us endure. I’m the same way, hundred percent, I’m on the same page, doing the same thing. But I’ve learned, now that I’ve lived long enough to learn this is that you can do everything you possibly can to arrange to avoid these things, but there are, is no way, there’s no way to perfectly avoid any kind of challenge, hardship, conflict or endurance. And we watched that even in the life of our Savior Jesus today, because Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane in our reading today, asking God if the cup could pass, if there were an…an alternative path, if there were another way. He’s crying out to His disciples enough to…to say that like the anxiety within Him is to the point of death. Or to just quote it from Mark, “I am deeply grieved to the point of death, remain here and stay awake.” Even Jesus, in this moment, doesn’t want to be left alone. Like He is enduring His own human mortality and the shortness of it that is left to remain. Even Jesus endured, and Jesus is one with the Father, this is what we believe as Christians. So even God endured. Jesus demonstrated absolute and utter trust all the way through death, only to find resurrection. So, there are some poignant and profound lessons for our lives, as we move through the wilderness with the children of Israel, watch their story and as we’re able to move over into the Gospels and watch Jesus model so much of this for us, so that we can see what both ends of the spectrum look like. Let’s continue to meditate upon it, to continue to invite the Holy Spirit to show us the places that we do not have utter and complete trust for God or trust at all for God, and that this creates all kinds of disconnects inside of us, because we’re trying to trust Him to do something, but when He’s not doing it the way that we expected or the way we wanted and we reach in and hijack the story and try to write a different chapter, than He’s trying to tell through us. Understanding that we can’t avoid some of the challenges in life. But that those challenges in life are challenges within us because they are beyond our control. But from God’s perspective, there’s nothing and our response in trusting God to lead us through whatever wilderness we are walking through, is the right choice, this safe choice. Like this self-preservation choice is to trust God in the wilderness. Let’s give it some thought.
Prayer:
So, Holy Spirit, come. Because in the wilderness, when we feel like we are being pressed and that we have navigated into a place where there’s no way out. That is the time to trust You and it is the time that we don’t, it’s a time that we make ourselves crazy trying to figure out our own solutions, when none of this is a problem for You. None of this stuff is a problem for You. And if we had a long view, none of this is a problem for us either. It’s an opportunity for us to trust You, and so, come, Holy Spirit. And help us to understand that sometimes the challenges that we face are invitations to go deeper, take us deeper, we pray, in Jesus name. Amen.
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Prayer and Encouragements:
Will be posted soon.