Sermon: February 3, 2008
"Missed Opportunities"
(scripture references are clickable)
We’re continuing with our sermon series on the stories given to us in the book of Numbers. You may recall hearing the first half of this story last week – the story of the twelve spies sent to reconnoiter the Promised Land. After a year in the wilderness, Israel was finally ready to enter the land of Canaan. They have received God’s Law and have been formed by Him into a new nation. They are ready to enter a new land – a land long promised to them by their God. But while the spies were scoping out that land, they were frightened by what they saw: large, fortified cities and powerful enemies. And when they returned, they spread their fears and doubts among the people.
And we see today that when the people hear this bad report, they go into hysterics. And they quickly whip each other into a frenzy until they begin to act like a mob. They weep. They grumble. They bewail their fate – for they are sure that God has brought them all the way to the border of the land of Canaan just to kill them. “‘If only we had died in Egypt!’” they say. “‘Or in this desert! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?’ And they said to each other, ‘We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.’” (Numbers 14:2-4, NIV). Now friends, this is an amazing turn of events, that the people would speak such evil of the Lord, that they would reject Him so thoroughly, that they would even think about going back to Egypt where they lived as slaves. They forget all of God’s previous miracles, all His acts of power, all the kindness and compassion He has shown to them – their deliverance from Egypt, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, let alone the fire and earthquake at Mount Sinai and the manna that fell from heaven every day. The Lord had defeated mighty Egypt without raising an army, and yet Israel believes that He would not be able to defeat the petty Canaanite city-states with the help of their army! No, they’re sure that the end is near.
But four people speak up against this mob: Moses, Aaron, Caleb and Joshua. Caleb speaks for them, saying “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them” (Numbers 14:7-9, NIV). These men clearly have faith in their God – and they are willing to put that faith into action. They are even willing to face down a dangerous mob, to stand up against a whole nation – their brothers and sisters – to speak up for the Lord. This is an amazing, courageous act of faith; we have to marvel at what these men were willing to do. But Israel doesn’t marvel at the bravery they see, and they certainly don’t listen. They are not moved to repentance by Caleb’s powerful words. No, instead, they’re ready to take up stones to kill those who would dare to speak against them, those who would try to encourage them to go into the land where they are sure they will die. But before they can take up those stones, the Lord appears in a sudden, abrupt show of magnificent glory.
It’s amazing what we learn about the Lord in this passage. Friends, we truly have a marvelous, awesome God. And here, in Numbers 14, we certainly must stand in awe of Him. For when He appears before His people, He is fed up. He’s had enough of His rebellious, stiff-necked people – and He’s ready to wipe them out with a plague and to start over again with Moses. This is the second time that God has considered this drastic course of action; the other instance came when Israel had rebelled and rejected God by worshipping the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. Now, of course, we don’t like these kinds of passages. We don’t like to see God be a God of wrath. But we must accept that He is a God of justice, a God who does not tolerate gross sin and rebellion. He is exceedingly patient – but not infinitely patient. He will only take so much. At some point, He breaks through and demands that the price of sin be paid. He is holy – and we must remember that, friends, and stand in awe of Him.
And actually, the truly amazing thing is that God does not appear in wrath more often. He certainly is more patient than most of us would be inclined to be! And here, we see that He truly is a merciful, forgiving God, One who is slow to anger and abounding in love (Numbers 14:18). Moses pleads with God to forgive His rebellious people. Moses wasn’t tempted by God’s offer to start over with him and his descendants. Instead, he’s more worried about God’s reputation among the nations. For how would it look to Egypt and Canaan if God led His people out into the wilderness only to wipe them out – if He actually did what Israel thought He was going to do? What about God’s honor? And so Moses prays for forgiveness “in accordance with Your great love . . . just as You have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now” (Numbers 14:19, NIV). And amazingly, after such wholesale rejection, after the people spoke such evil of their God, after they threatened to stone their leaders and return to the land from which God had just delivered them – in spite of all this, God still forgives them. Friends, may we always remember both the great justice and the great mercy of our God – He who takes sin so very seriously, and yet is willing to forgive so very much! All praise and glory be to Him!
But there are still consequences here, and they are three-fold. First, these rebellious people missed their chance to enter into the promised land. Because of this rebellion, they will wander for thirty-eight more years in the wilderness, making their time in the desert an even forty years. They have just condemned themselves to a life of listless, aimless wandering. This was their one chance for the promised land, and they said “no”. And so secondly, because they had told God that it would be better to die in the desert than to enter the land of Canaan (Numbers 14:2), that is exactly what God gives them. All those over the age of twenty, all those numbered in the census of fighting men, they all will die in the desert, just as they wished. They had accused God of selling their children as plunder to the Canaanites (Numbers 14:3), but in God’s great mercy, only their children will enter the promised land. The only exceptions to this are Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who acted on faith. “Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home,” God says, ‘except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua sun of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you – your bodies will fall in this desert” (Numbers 14:30-32, NIV). And lastly, the other ten spies who had spoken such evil against the Lord, the ones who started this rebellion with their bad report, they died for their sins there at Kadesh. But amazingly, after all this, Israel still didn’t get it. They didn’t get that they had missed their opportunity. No, “in their presumption”, Scripture tells us, they went on the attack after the fact (Numbers 14:44, NIV). But God was not with them and they were defeated. More people died because of sin.
It’s a sad, sobering story. We see that even while God is indeed gracious, compassionate and forgiving, even while He is immensely patient and faithful, there are still consequences for our sins against Him. This generation missed their opportunity for blessing. They rejected all the good that God wanted to give them. They rejected His plans and His purpose for their lives. They could have lived in the promised land. They could have seen the miraculous victories He wanted to give them against the Canaanite nations. They could have had a settled life in a fruitful land, flowing with milk and honey. But they threw all that away with both hands. They rebelled against God’s blessings because they were afraid; when the time for action came, they didn’t have faith that God would be with them. And so they doomed themselves to decades more in the middle of nowhere, to decades more of subsisting on manna, to decades of watching their children grow up in the desert while they slowly died off, one-by-one, to be buried in the desolate sand. It makes you want to weep, when you think of what they threw away – and for what?
We can be quick to condemn, I know, but we must be careful, my friends. We must be careful not to let our fears, our doubts and our lack of faith hold us back as our predecessors in the faith did. May we instead be courageous like Caleb and Joshua! May we stand up for our just and merciful God, even if an angry mob is against us! May we say “yes” to Him and to His call upon our lives, even when there are those who are ready to take up stones to execute us! May we seize our opportunity to enter into the promised land, remembering that it may be the only opportunity we are given! For the Lord may have raised us up for such a time as this, and if we say “no”, we may condemn ourselves to a life of aimless, purposeless wandering. May the Lord instead give us a bold, courageous faith, and may we grab the opportunities He gives to step out and act on that faith! And as always, to God alone be the glory! Amen.