Numbers 20:1-13 • It’s Hard to Obey God and Be God - Part 1
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
From Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, this is In the Covenant of Grace. Here's the president of Covenant Seminary, Dr. Brian Chappell.
How easy it is when accused to want to accuse back, to take the gospel, the word of consolation that God has given, and want to accuse my accusers. And I know in me there is the great desire at times to say, "Well, if you're going to punch that way, I'm going to punch that way." It's very easy to do. And to hold myself accountable. The only word that we have, the only word that we have and have a right to say is the word of the gospel that is in Christ Jesus. We will be ruled by King Jesus and the words of His gospel, and we will hold up to the world His gospel of grace, and that is our only message.
The mission of Covenant Theological Seminary is to train servants of the Triune God that they might walk with Him and learn to interpret and communicate God's Word, to lead God's people that they would be living in the Covenant of Grace.
Today, Dr. Brian Chappell comes to part one of the message entitled, "It's Hard to Obey God and Be God."
Who's in charge here? Well, many of us have asked that question when we wanted to complain about something at a store or restaurant. We only want to speak to the one with the power to make things right. But how often do we want to be that one in charge, calling the shots in our own lives? And how many times have we done this at the expense of the one who is ultimately in charge of all of creation?
The scripture text for today's teaching is from Numbers chapter 20 verses 1 through 13.
Now once again, here's Dr. Brian Chappell with today's broadcast we've entitled, "It's Hard to Obey God and Be God."
The children of Israel are preparing to go into the Promised Land again.
It's been 40 years that they have been wandering since they once before, grumbled about their deprivations and the challenges ahead of them. And now it's particularly Moses calling to lead them forward.
It is that calling that I want to examine today, the costs of our calling as we would think about both leaving as well as going to where God calls us. Today I want to particularly talk about the duties of calling for God's leaders. What does God really expect of us as we would lead God's people into and even against great challenges, some of those challenges in them?
Here's what happens in Numbers chapter 20.
In the first month, the whole Israelite community arrived at the desert of Zinn and they stayed at Kadesh.
Their Miriam died and was buried.
Now there was no water for the community and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord, why did you bring the Lord's community into this desert that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?
It is no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates and there is no water to drink."
Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell face down and the glory of the Lord appeared to them.
The Lord said to Moses, "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 had commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them,
"Listen, you rebels, must we bring water out of this, must we bring you water out of this rock?"
Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.
Water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank.
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."
These were the waters of Meribah where the Israelites choralled with the Lord and where he showed himself holy among them.
The sermon had gone very well.
The preacher knew it as he went home. He was still basking in the glow of handshakes and congratulations of how everything had just been stupendous that morning. He knew it had. I mean, he had actually been able to find an aspect of Greek exegesis that had not even been mentioned by his professor in seminary.
And the illustrations, the illustrations had been drawn from sources as diverse as the martyrdom of an obscure Puritan and an observation he had made while watching a docking mechanism on the space shuttle.
And the applications, the applications. I mean, they were so poignant. They were so good that even the engineers in the audience got misty-eyed.
He just almost couldn't believe how well it had gone. The choir had sparkled. The sun was shining. The sermon had smoked.
And just practically nothing could take away his euphoria of the moment until he recognized his wife hadn't said anything yet.
I mean, they were driving home and she still hadn't said anything.
And he thought, you know, how could he just kind of encourage her to, you know, say the right thing? I mean, he couldn't just come out and ask for a compliment. I mean, that would be kind of insensitive and maybe even a bit unspiritual. And so he thought he would just kind of help her out a little bit. And so he asked her this question. She said, "Honey, how many really great preachers do you suppose there are in the world today?" And she didn't say anything. And he thought, well, you know, she's just caught up in the euphoria of the morning too. She just didn't hear me. And so he asked again, "Honey, how many really great preachers do you suppose there are in the world today?" And this time she did speak and she said, "Honey, one less than you're thinking right now."
Now, that story by another preacher is funny, but it's scary because it's so poignantly and in reality shows how even in doing God's work, even in serving God, we can end up serving ourselves.
That in ways we don't even imagine, it's our glory that we're pursuing while we think we're encouraging others to honor His glory.
And it's just kind of a simple lesson that you can't obey God and be God at the same time.
Now, we all agree with that and we all know it, but the account before us shows us that even some of the most mature leaders of God's people can forget.
I mean, after all, what could cause someone like Moses to seek to obey God and be God at the same time?
We need to take note, lest we go down a path he did in seeking to lead God's people. How do we keep from trying to obey God and be God? First, simply by resisting, substituting human leadership for God.
How would we substitute human leadership for God?
It's not real obvious in the passage because there's so many right things that Moses does. I mean, if you try to characterize his leadership, first you say there is good pastoral practice in what he does.
After all, think of what happens in verse 6. "Moses and Aaron went from the assembly," those people who've been grumbling against God and against Moses, "they go from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and they fall face down and the glory of the Lord appeared to them." Here they are, though attacked, petitioning God for God's people.
God, they're grumbling against you. They're attacking us.
And yet Moses, with really a wonderful example in itself, is saying, "Regardless of how the people are acting, leaders are responsible to petition God in their behalf."
That's a hard lesson.
Some of you know church planters who, after the church has gotten established and done well for a few years, the people don't view that pastor, the very one who got them started, as the one they want to continue with and end up rejecting that person.
What would it be for such a pastor to continue, even in the midst of assault, to petition God for the people?
The women who prepare the meals for somebody who's been ill and at the same time that they need it, it's not prepared for them.
The parent who sacrifices for a child gives so much of energy and effort and resource,
and then it's unappreciated to be down on your knees again before the presence of God saying, "God, they have hurt you and they have hurt me, but I petition you for them." Moses is doing more than petitioning the people. He is refusing to be swayed by pleasing them.
If you look at the 10th verse, you may remember he says these rather amazing words gathered before the people, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?"
I mean, that's a risky thing. This is not very politic. You don't win elections this way. You look at the people and say, "You're wrong!
You rebels? Do we have to just serve you for all the wrongs things that we're doing?" I mean, he's not going to get the popular vote this way. This is very risky talk.
But at the same time, you have to recognize that it reflects maybe a New Testament principle where the Apostle Paul and 1 Thessalonians say, "We are speaking as men approved by God to spread the gospel, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts."
You can't be an effective leader if your primary goal is to be liked.
It's not wrong to be liked. You certainly don't want to be the opposite.
But if you need to be liked, if pleasing people is what drives you, you cannot be an effective leader. Here's simply good pastoral practice in front of us.
And there's more that Moses does. There's even some fairly bold personal initiative. I mean, think of what he does here.
If you look down at what God commanded him to do, in verse 8, God says, "Take the staff. You and your brother Aaron, gather the assembly together, speak to the rock before their eyes, it will pour out its water."
Now that's what God says.
Speak to the rock and it will bring forth water.
Now Moses takes some initiative here.
He speaks to the people and strikes the rock.
Now the consequences of that are rather severe. If you get to the 12th verse, "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 them into this community, into the land I give them." I mean, I know it wasn't just exactly what God said, but it doesn't seem that wrong. It doesn't seem so wrong that God would say, "Now you, Moses, having led faithfully, sacrificed, put yourself at risk over and over again just because you didn't do this little thing exactly the right way," that God says, "Now you, Moses, cannot enter the promised land." I mean, it just seems like some personal initiative. But in that initiative is really the key to what is so wrong and tells us how we might really end up substituting ourselves for God in positions of leadership. What does Moses do that is so wrong?
He substitutes words that God does not give.
That's the first thing.
God says, "Speak to the rock and it will pour forth water." It's actually to be consolation to God's people. Those are the words that are to come. And instead the words that come out of Moses are condemnation.
You rebels. Now, I confess that what they were doing was wrong, but the words that God had given Moses to say were those of consolation even in their sin. And all they hear from this leader is condemnation. He becomes an originator of words not given by God, and therefore he takes to himself an office of profit that God has not given.
But it really is worse than that because of the little action that he does of taking up the staff and striking the rock. Now, God didn't tell him to do that. Remember, he was only supposed to speak. It was to be obvious to all the people that there was not a human action, not a human contribution to what was now going to come out of blessing for the people of God. Even more striking, if this account sounds familiar to you, when you remember where this did happen before with that generation of complainers that is specified by Miriam, remember her death as mentioned in the very first verse? There's Miriam, that generation that complained, that did what was so wrong. If you look back at Exodus 17, you'll see what that generation did and how they were spoken to by God back then.
And Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 saying, "We, the Israelites, drink of the same spiritual rock that we do, and that rock is Christ."
This is the image of God giving himself for man, letting his glory be struck, humiliating himself that their sin would be covered. And now Moses, at a later time before the eyes of God's people, is willing to strike the rock himself by his own hand without the mediation and intercession of God. He simply says, "This now depends on me. I am your Redeemer. I am the one who will cause the rock to give forth its water. Must we," he says of himself in error, "must we bring water out of this rock for you?"
Moses has suddenly not just merely become prophet, he has become priest of a new mediator, his own power to save the people when God had already provided his own humiliation to save the people. And it's not the end. For Moses does all this holding the staff of God in his hand, the very staff that parted the waters, the very staff that was the rule of God before the eyes of the people. He says, "I have other words and I have other mediation before God," and he claims it with the authority of God himself in his hand.
He has become another prophet and he has become another priest and he has become another king.
This is God alone can hold all in his own being.
That is why God would say in the 12th verse, "You did not regard me as holy. You took for yourself more than you ever could and ever should have." Of course, as we see that, we say, "How could that possibly be?" We would recognize that there are lessons for us simply in ministry, that in our ministry our resolve would be. There will be no other words than God's word. No other mediator than Christ, no other king but our Lord and Savior.
But Moses would have said that. Come on, he's the writer of the deck log, the 10 commandments. He knows no other God before God.
What happened to Moses?
Well, we don't have to look far.
Verse 3 through 5 tell us that the people quarreled with Moses. Verse 4, "They accused him." Why did you bring the Lord's community in this place? Verse 5, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to this place? There is no water to drink." They're accusing him and he gets mad. That's what's wrong.
The psalmist in the 106 Psalms says simply, "Moses used rash words.
They acted against him. They didn't give him the respect that was due him and so he got mad.
And as a result, he began to take to himself credit and give instruction and authority that was not his to give."
We think it would never happen to us.
Happens easily, quickly.
On the way that I used to go to church when I was a child growing up, there was always a golf course on our way and it was a time for those of us who were holy to kind of observe those people who were desecrating the Sabbath by playing golf on Sunday mornings and not going to church where we were. And I can remember kind of looking out at that kind of grassy field of the golf course and just kind of observing it as kind of the den of iniquity that I knew it had to be.
It wasn't really into my very far adult years that I recognized there was another child who was observing that golf course every Sunday with a very different impression. He's now a friend of mine and we had taken the same route to church growing up.
He said that when he would go by in his family's car, that golf course, every Sunday morning,
he would look out at the green with the quiet and the tranquility and he would force his mind out of the car to that promised land of peace because there was war going on inside the car.
Every Sunday, he said, as the day would begin, typically sheets were yanked off the bed and with accusation and slaps and spanks, children were gotten out of bed.
You lazy children. We are going to be late again.
I will look bad. Don't you know I'm a seminary student. How are we going to get a job if the people in the church don't respect me? That I don't look good before them.
It wasn't just the children, it was the wife who also got in trouble. And the later they got, the more the tirade and the anger would build.
All the way to church to hear the grace of God under the anger of a man who was saying things like, "You damaged me.
You need me, but you don't give me respect.
And I need that respect in order to be able to minister God to others."
It does happen.
I recognize it happens to me how easy it is when accused to want to accuse back, to take the gospel, the word of consolation that God has given, and want to accuse my accusers. And I know in me there is the great desire at times to say, "Well, if you're going to punch that way, I'm going to punch that way." It's very easy to do and very tempting.
And to hold myself accountable. The only word that we have, the only word that we have and have a right to say is the word of the gospel that is in Christ Jesus.
And if that is not enough to protect us, then we really have nothing else to say. Because I'm not the mediator and this institution is not the mediator. All that we have is our Lord to look to. And we will testify of Him. And if that is not enough, if we perish, we perish. But this is what we will say. And we are under that authority and no other to do it. We will be ruled by King Jesus and the words of His gospel, and we will hold up to the world His gospel of grace, and that is our only message.
Doesn't mean that we don't stand with integrity. It doesn't mean we won't stand with courage. But this is all we have and we will stand for it.
Now, that gospel of grace isn't always easy to maintain, particularly when you think what happened to Moses.
I mean, you and I both recognize that not only is Moses substituting his human leadership for God, this count isn't really going to help us because we see what ultimately happens to Moses until we recognize that what God has to do is substitute Himself for flaws in human leadership.
I love verse 11.
"Moses raised his arm, struck the rock twice with his staff." Now, recognize that is the wrong thing to do. It is blasphemous in action itself. But what happens?
Water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank. God provides for his people despite flawed leadership. I mean, that's a wonderful message of God's grace that I need over and over again. The gushing is hard for us to kind of take in with the images that are usually put before us in, you know, the Sunday school books that we get. But I'll think for a moment, 600,000 fighting men left Egypt and their families and their livestock. Now, I don't know how many have died in the desert and how the next generation has reproduced itself, but by any estimation, there are hundreds of thousands more than the people you will see in this entire day, any of you, are drinking at this water. And it's not just them, but their livestock. I mean, I've just done some quick math and it seems to me even conservatively, there's a thousand gallons a minute that have to be coming out of this rock to provide for this many people and their livestock. I mean, you know, in this little stream, it's kind of going, God is saying, "Gushed out!" You know, here's this huge blessing coming over God's people as a result of Moses' mistake.
We need to look to the Lord and His Word to protect us, to merely obey His Word and let God be God.
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