Numbers 23

God gave the Israelites a way to approach Him in the Old Testament Law. That was the authorized system, and it included the offering up of blood sacrifices according to His specific instructions.

Balaam the sorcerer was an expert not in authorized religious devotion, but in unauthorized spirituality. He used blood sacrifices as well, and he gave instructions to Balak, the king of Moab, concerning everything that he needed in order to practice his craft. Balak did everything that Balaam said.

But this sorcerer Balaam was a man under strict orders. God had told him in a very clear and persuasive way that he must only say way God gave him to say.

Balak was expecting results. He wanted Israel crushed through Balaam's arts.

The Lord spoke an entirely different message through Baalam: “How can I curse whom God has not cursed? … Who can count the dust of Jacob?”

Balak would not give up. Would the result be different if his sorcerer looked on from a different spot where he could not see so many Israelites?

The message that Balaam brought back to the elders of Moab the second time was no better: “God is not man, that he should lie,... There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel.”

This was a shocking word. Balak had summoned Balaam for spiritual help against Israel. He had expected the sorcerer to curse the people of Yahweh. He had thought that Balaam would curse Israel, and that his evil words would bring great harm upon Israel. But Balaam could not even utter any words of cursing.

Israel's strength was not in herself, but in the settled determination of the Almighty to bless His chosen people. No weapon formed against her could ultimately prosper.

His Old Testament nation and His New Testament church were and are a people that He has brought into being. He was able to make the words of the sorcerer a rebuke to the man who wanted to curse His people.

“All that the Lord says, that I must do.” These were Balaam's words. Yet his heart was far from right.

The righteous One, the Son of God, gave a Word of blessing upon the Lord's people in His resurrection. It was a Word that did not tear down the weak, but established them in the righteousness and power of Jesus Christ, the King of heaven and earth.

His Name is now the only clear and powerful pathway to eternal blessing. It is the way that God has authorized. There is no other Name given among men by which we must be saved.

2 Timothy 3:2 continued...

“The Last Days and Thankfulness”

(2 Timothy 3:2, October 30, 2011)

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, ...

ungrateful

At the very center of the Christian world view is the cross of Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that the event of the cross is, in one sense, the darkest moment in human history, the Christian faith is not at all bleak.

Christians need to boldly proclaim the hope that the Bible presents to us so brightly. God is not content with death, and all the sad griefs that accompany our ultimate struggle with mortality. God is determined to bring about a glorious unity between Himself and a new creation.

Christ and the cross are at the very center of that grand purpose of God. He is uniting all things in Christ; things in heaven, and things on earth. See Ephesians 1:10.

Our debt before God has been canceled through the greatest work of love that could ever be undertaken. The flawlessly righteous One has died for the many unrighteous.

The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of a new world. The resurrection life of the spirit in those who receive His Word is a taste of that new life right now.

We can be grateful for millions of gifts from God even in this dying world. We should be very thankful for all that Christ has done for us in our costly redemption, and in the gift of His Holy Spirit. Bet the best is yet to come – by far.

Christians should be thankful people.

But in these last days there are so many people who are ungrateful. They do not take responsibility for their own hopelessness, but look to blame God and people as the source of all their troubles. Their outlook on life is very bleak. Drowning in negativity, they would take down many others with them who would be impressed by their humorless self-importance.

We need a different Spirit than that. We need to be filled with a Spirit of gratitude. This is one of the brightest shining lights of the church that is on fire with heaven's gift. This is the only way that people will ever ask us, “What is the reason for the hope that lies within you?”

Numbers 22

Over the next four chapters we follow the story of a very interesting spiritual war. A key figure in that conflict was a man named Balaam, a sorcerer known to the king of Moab.

The king was a firm believer in the ways and words of Balaam's sorcery, and he wanted to hire him to curse the Israelites. This desire to curse God's people was born out of fear, since the people of Israel had multiplied greatly, and had defeated those who stood in their way as enemies.

Balak, the king of Moab was convinced that the curse of Balaam would be a sure thing. We remember the words of God when He spoke to Abram so many centuries earlier in Genesis 12: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you.”

God spoke to Balaam and warned him not to do what Balak wanted, not even to go with those who came to call him to the king. Balaam treated the Lord as yet another god who he was able to contact as a sorcerer. He did not want to cross Yahweh on this matter, but the sorcerer did not obey the Lord from a pure heart.

Balak sent messengers a second time with an even more persuasive offer. He had money. He was a king who could make life difficult for those who refused his entreaties. But Balaam at least knew that Yahweh was more to be feared than the king of Moab.

Nonetheless, this time the Lord instructed Balaam to go. He must have had a point in letting this sorcerer move into position against Israel. God would surely vindicate His own Name and save His people. He could turn the curses of enemies into blessings for Israel, bringing low those who dared to lift a hand against His nation.

Balaam set off according to the Lord's instruction, yet he met an obstacle that only his donkey could see. In his mad raging he was ready to kill the animal. Yet God gave the donkey a voice which he used to correct the sorcerer.

Balaam was an expert in unauthorized access to spiritual realms. He was a sorcerer who was sought after by a powerful king. Yet he was unable to see the angel of the Lord standing before him.

Then the Lord Himself opened Balaam's eyes to see the unseen one, and the magician fell on his face before the angel of the Lord. Even though God had told Balaam to go meet with Balak, the Lord's message through His angel revealed Balaam's inner corruption. “I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me.”

This unusual encounter reinforced the Lord's earlier instruction. Balaam would not be permitted to say anything on his own. God would use this man to give a message from the Lord, and would not permit that message to be tainted by the imaginations of the sorcerer's own perverse heart.

Balaam got the point. He said to Balak, “The word that God puts in my mouth, that must I speak.”

The Lord could bring a sorcerer to fall on his face before him. A magician's ability to do with the unseen world what no man was permitted to do was no serious threat to Almighty God. No one can stop the Lord.

When Jesus came as the final prophet, He did not need to be backed into a corner in order to say only what God gave Him to say or to do only what God told Him to do. This was the continuous impulse of His sinless being. Balaam knew how to play some spiritual tricks, but Jesus was the only authorized way to eternal life.

God had promised Abram in Genesis 12 that those who cursed Israel would be cursed, and that those who blessed Israel would be blessed. He also said that through Abram all the people groups of the earth would be blessed. Jesus, the seed of Abraham, has become the source of blessing for all who turn to Him for life. He did not come here for money. He came as the perfect expression of divine love.

Numbers 21

God's plan does not call for a compromise with evil, but an utter defeat of it. He does call us to live quietly, peacefully, and submissively in all societies in as much as that is possible. But in the days approaching the conquest of Canaan, He gave His people a sense of what would come one day by to bringing about the utter destruction of those who captured some of their number.

How can we make sense of this in light of the love of the cross? We are reminded that the cross itself is not a compromise with evil, but a stunning defeat of it through the death of Christ as our substitute.

The enemy within the hearts of the people of God was at least as serious as the enemy powers outside Israel. God would not compromise with that internal foe either. The people were brought to look to the serpent on the pole, and live. In John 3:14-16 we learn that this is the way that God loves the world. He has provided a Redeemer for all mankind, so that we might look to Him and live. Our Substitute has been lifted up upon the cross. He died for all who would look to Him for life, and now we are counted among the living.

The Lord carried His people safely past those who would have destroyed them. He provided for their need for water in the wilderness. The praise of His people became a chosen instrument for refreshment and nourishment. “Spring up. O well! Sing to it!”

Great works of victory against powerful enemies are recorded in the praise of the songs of God's people. They rejoice in the Lord who enables them to live and thrive, though their enemies desire to destroy them.

Our New Testament songs are not recounting a victory against Sihon and Og. But we do sing, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” The Word above all earthly powers has defeated the evil inside us and outside us.

Believing, we rejoice! And in the praise of the saints of the Lord, there is power. May the Lord continue to use the songs of His people to defeat every enemy. May the victory of the cross be complete in our lives and over all the earth. And may the Name of Jesus Christ be our boast forever and ever.

Numbers 20

The story of Miriam had a very difficult moment that we encountered in an earlier chapter. She was put outside the camp for seven days because of her rebellion against her brother, Moses. But like her brother, she would not go into the promised land. She died in the wilderness, and was buried there.

The events that led to the disappointing news that even Moses would not enter the promised land are recorded for us here and in other places. The problem, no water, and the grumbling of the people, are plainly written. Moses and Aaron brought this before the Lord, and the Lord gave His specific instructions to the mediator of the Old Covenant.

The words and actions of Moses are recorded for us here. What is clear is that Moses committed a serious breach in the eyes of the Lord. Rather than theorize too much on that breach, it is best for us to consider the Lord's own words very carefully, since God knows the heart, and observes things that people cannot see.

“Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” The key words here are “believe” and “holy.”

Moses' failure was, at root, a problem of unbelief. This does not mean that Moses was not one of God's children. He appeared with Jesus at the Transfiguration. Yet he too tasted unbelief, and that showed up in this situation.

He forgot to show the Lord as “holy.” The Lord is set apart. He alone can bring water from a rock to supply His sons and daughters. We have streams of living water flowing from the Rock, which is Christ. Moses is not our rock. He is not the Water from the Rock. He is not the Provider of the Water from the Rock. These honors are reserved for the Triune God.

There are ways of ministering to others where we get in the way of the grace and glory of God. The water may still come forth, but our unbelief has put the focus more on us than on the holiness of the Lord. We may still be used in the Lord's service, but He will show Himself as holy. There may be sad consequences that come to us and others because of our unbelief.

The Lord disciplined His people in the wilderness, but He did not abandon them or His promises. Though the descendants of Esau, the Edomites, would not have charity to the Israelites in their journey, God would carry them through this and every trial.

This chapter began with the death of Moses' sister and it ends with the death of Moses' brother. In between, the Lord records an episode of unbelief, not just the unbelief of the congregation, but even of Moses himself. These are the facts, but they are not the only facts.

The congregation wept for Aaron for thirty days. We mourn the sorrows that families face and we regret our own sin and unbelief. Yet we do not grieve as those who have no hope. The Rock has come for us. He has poured out the gift of refreshing Water from on high, a Water that will last for all eternity. The Provider of every good gift has kept His promises to His people. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

More on 2 Timothy 3:2 ...

“Disobedient to their parents”

(2 Timothy 3:2, October 23, 2011)

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ...

disobedient

God has given us authority structures for our own good. See Romans 13. He has set His Son to reign on Zion's holy hill, but He warns us that throughout this entire gospel period which He called “the last days” there will be many people who will be disobedient to lawful authorities.

Some Jews, like John the Baptist, probably assumed that when the Jewish Messiah came, we would almost instantly see the fullness of every Messianic promise. God's plan was different than that. He would work through sinners in reaching sinners. He would use weak people to reach weak people.

This was not an incidental element of His plan. It is glorifying to God to display before heaven and earth His strength as it is perfected in our weakness. He is our boast. We magnify His Name.

If the obedience just came only through His instantaneous grace working immediately on every one of His children, this would be less glorifying to Him than His current way of expanding His kingdom and His reign. We need to understand that in these last days there will be disobedient people. He knows us. He uses us. He changes us.

to their parents

Perhaps the most disappointing kind of disobedience is the rebellion that rips apart families. Not only are children disobedient to parents, but parents exasperate their children.

We might make our peace with civil disobedience, or workers being insubordinate, or church members being unwilling to submit to the elders in the church. We might try to overlook unwise governors, bosses, and pastors, and just take the abuse that they unwisely push upon their subordinates. But it really hurts when our families break down in front of our eyes. We don't even know how to fix the family problems that are all over our society and our church, but what really breaks our hearts is that this bad news touches our own families.

We long for the Messiah who obeyed His parents even though they did not understand Him. Our disobedience in family relationships has been more than covered by His righteousness and death. He alone can speak real peace into our souls. Will we listen to His Word? Will we be led by the Spirit of holiness?

It is one of the defining marks of people who are full of the Spirit of God that they submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. To be united with Him not only in Name, but in power, seems most essential if we are to turn away from the temptation toward familial disrespect in an age when all authority is suspect, and where so much authority has been truly abusive.

At the head of the most important family unit is a Father who has given His Son for us. At His right hand is an elder brother who is committed to the fullness of your good order and life. It is the Spirit of the Father and the Son that alone can keep us from falling into the sad patterns all around us. Christ is our King, but a King who died on a cross knows our weakness and is determined to bring us into family relationships that show the marks of His powerful healing.

Numbers 19

We don't use the blood of a bull or the ashes of a heifer in any of our spiritual ceremonies today. We have something better than that, something that can even cleanse our consciences not only from sin, but even from dead religious works. We have the blood of Christ shed for us, and the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon us.

Not that we are without rituals. We do have water baptism and the regular celebration of the body and blood of the Lord. These are gifts that Christ has instituted for the church. They are signs and seals that remind us of our hope in Jesus Christ alone.

In the days of Moses and Aaron, Israel was prepared for the coming of the Messiah through rituals that showed a way of purification through cleansing.

The water of purification could provide ceremonial cleansing for an outward uncleanness, such as might result from contact with a dead body. But that water could not address the inner uncleanness that comes through defiling thoughts and actions. Yet Christ does have an answer for our deepest need for lasting and perfect purification.

Christ has not only cleansed us, He has also cleansed the heavenly sanctuary to receive us as holy in Him. I am not sure I understand all that, but He knew what was necessary in order for us to be with Him forever, and He has accomplished it all for us. On earth, He did all that was required for the Messiah to do on earth. It is finished. In heaven He is doing all that is necessary for the Messiah to do at the right hand of the Father. Fantastic. We shall be eternally free of all uncleanness, and we will live in a new cosmos of complete blessedness and purity.

Our bodies will be clean. Our dwelling places will be clean. Our relationships will be clean. Our souls will be clean.

Baptism testifies to these great promises of God to us in Jesus Christ. Consider the water. Consider the Name. Consider the blood of Jesus. Consider the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Remember your baptism, and walk in the heavenly power of clean that can do much more for you than anything made with the ashes of a heifer.

Numbers 18

The Lord gave the Old Testament priesthood as a gift to Aaron and his descendants. He reaffirmed the exclusiveness of this gift by causing Aaron's staff to blossom in the previous chapter. But the gift of the priesthood was not entirely safe. The danger of death was everywhere.

There were blessings connected with this sacred job. Certain portions of offerings belonged to the priests, as well as many other gifts for the care of the priestly families. But everything had to be done strictly in accord with the ceremonial laws that the Lord had spoken, and the priests and Levites did not have the same kind of tribal inheritance in the land that would be given to the rest of Israel. God was to be their portion.

As a tribe, the Levites had the danger of proximity to the work of the priests. They also had the privilege of the provision of the tithes of Israel. The tithes were their inheritance. But what if people would not pay their tithes?

A tithe of the tithes would go from the Levites to the sons of Aaron, the priests. The Levites were to give away the first and the best to the priests, just as others were to give the first and the best to them.

The leadership of Levi and of the Aaronic priesthood was an essential part of Old Testament ceremonial life. God would not allow the other tribes to do what he had given only to Aaron and to the Levites to perform.

With this special life came provision. But that provision was dependent upon the obedience of the nation. Also with this holy life came substantial danger. This chapter ends with the sobering statement, “But you shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, lest you die.”

To draw near to a just God without the protection of an acceptable atonement was extremely dangerous. Who could stand if God had come to judge? Who would be able to trust when the people grumbled and complained? Would there even be significant enough provision to keep the work of the sanctuary going?

But all this was nothing when compared with the challenges that faced our High Priest when He came to die for our sins. His life was His offering to God for us, and He freely gave it. He did not have a place to lay His head, yet He trusted perfectly in the One who judges justly, and who promises to supply all our needs.

This is the true Priest, and the Servant of the Lord. His name and His cross have become our boast. In His faith and obedience there is a light that guides us. In His resurrection we have a very secure hope.

Numbers 17

Even in the Old Covenant, the Lord had established more than one system of governance. The tribes had leaders under Moses who were to move forward as he move forward with the tribe of Judah in a position of prominence. But at the center of the camp was the Lord's sanctuary under Aaron the High Priest, a Levite.

This second authority, the permission to draw near to God in accord with His Word, was an important marker in our preparation for the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, who was not only the King of the Lord's Kingdom, but the High Priest over a royal priesthood. He was not of the descendants of Aaron, because the Old Testament priesthood would not continue in the New Covenant. The right of access to God through Jesus would allow all of God's children to boldly approach our Father through Him.

For the Old Testament period, challenges to Aaron's authority as High Priest were answered not only by Moses, but also by a visible sign given by the Lord Himself. Only Aaron's rod, out of all the staff's from the leaders of the tribes, would miraculously produce buds. Moses deposited the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the testimony. On the next day, only Aaron's staff had not only buds, but blossoms, and even almonds. A dead piece of wood had been given life.

This blossoming staff was a visual testimony of the Lord's seal on his own Word. This should have stopped all the grumbling over spiritual privileges among the descendants of Israel.

The reaction of the Lord's children was recorded for us to consider in the final verses of the chapter: “Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone. Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the LORD, shall die. Are we all to perish?”

It was true that all who would transgress the Law, approaching the Lord in unauthorized ways without regard for the spiritual duties and privileges given to Aaron, deserved to die. But there was a future hope, not only for Israel, but for all the tribes of the world included in the Lord's promise to Abraham. God's intention was to bless all the nations through the Seed of Abraham.

The singular Seed has saved the plural seed. The union between the One and many is something that the church celebrates every time we eat the holy bread together. We proclaim the Lord's death until He comes, and we ourselves are called the body of Christ.

This great privilege of access to the Father is ours through Jesus, our High Priest. The door to heaven is open to Jews and Gentiles in Christ. There is no other Name given among men by which we must be saved.

He is the Resurrection and the Life. He is the new blossom of everlasting spiritual authority. He bids us to come to Him, and to find everlasting life, peace, rest, and fruitfulness. Through Him, we shall not perish.

2 Timothy 3:2...

“Proud, Arrogant, Abusive”

(2 Timothy 3:2, October 9, 2011)

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, ...

proud

In the gospel age there is so much for which we can be thankful. Nonetheless, we have been warned that there will be difficulties associated with people both inside and outside the churches, and even a spiritual struggle inside us.

People will be proud. Like wandering braggers who can never stay long in any one place, since people eventually find out that they cannot be taken seriously, there will be self-promoters that will seem to win a hearing for a time. Eventually they will seek a new group of listeners.

arrogant

People will be arrogant. There will be those who want to shine beyond themselves, trying to pretend that they have attained more than they have. Some will do this with supposed wealth and position; others with false spirituality.

Such people will find it hard to appreciate the light of Christ in others, since their glory shines so brightly in their own eyes that they just can't see anything else. But if someone stands in the way of their own brilliance, watch out. They will take notice of that offense.

abusive

People will be abusive. They will confuse the creature and the Creator, putting themselves in the Creator's spot, and expecting everyone else to acknowledge their greatness.

These will be features of the spiritual battle that will rage during the entire New Covenant era, sometimes coming to a head in one figure or another in one place or another, but eventually culminating in one who insists that he is the object of world-wide adoration, deceiving so many in the church that the movement following him grows to the apostasy that Paul speaks of in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10.

Proud, arrogant, abusive, … Not just as twisted traits of personality, but as a reflection of the battle of the ages.

The antidote to this in the church is the reality of the cross of Christ, both as historical fact, and as mission strategy. We are looking for small opportunities for service. We want the light to shine on the One who is our only boast. See Galatians 6:14. God will make that powerful, defeating the remnants of a proud, arrogant, and abusive flesh in us that has already been dealt a mortal wound in the death of Christ for his beloved children.

Numbers 16

Moses and Aaron were from the clan of the Kohathites of the tribe of Levite. There were many other Kohathites, but by God's command, only the descendants of Aaron among them could be priests. All of Israel was counted as a kingdom of priests to God, but not all reigned over the nation as kings or offered incense to God as priests.

Some of the men resented this, and they assembled a group of 250 chiefs of the congregation in a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Their claim was that all the congregation was holy. This was true, but that did not mean that God had not set apart Moses and Aaron for certain functions that were only for them. Korah and his company also made the charge that Moses and Aaron, according to their own desires for glory, had exalted themselves above all the other Israelites, which was not the case.

Moses understood that this attack was against God and not merely against Aaron and his sons. Our rebellious impulses against those in church authority... is it possible that we are really fighting against God?

Some of the men that were involved in this rebellion refused to even come to Moses when he sent for them. They renewed their claim that Egypt had been a land flowing with milk and honey for them, and that Moses was at fault for leading them out into the wilderness.

It was not safe to be these rebellious men. It was not even safe to be anywhere near them. The earth swallowed them up and fire came out from the Lord to consume those who were offering incense against the Lord's commandments.

Despite these miraculous displays of divine judgment, the people of Israel still grumbled against Moses and Aaron. God was ready to consume them all. He used Moses and Aaron to plead for this sinful nation, as Christ, our High Priest, even now, not only intercedes for us, but even gave His life for us at the appointed time.

The wrath of God was a very serious matter for the consideration of all the earth. Only the blood of Christ could make effective atonement for us. His death has stopped a plague that would have surely consumed us and our families.

Numbers 15

After all that has taken place, even after the people did not obey God in the incident with those he sent to spy out the land, though they would not go in when He commanded them to go in, and though they insisted on going in when He told them not to go in, the Lord was still the God of Israel. God was still speaking to Moses, and He still had words for the congregation through His chosen mediator.

Life went on. The future generation would go into the land one day. There they would offer to the Lord food offerings, burnt offerings, and sacrifices. They would include a grain offering and a wine offering with it as appropriate. Even sojourners would come through the land and follow these commands.

Amazing. We had almost thought it was all over. But the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. Even when all seems lost.

The land was a good land, and the descendants of Jacob would have that land one day. They would bring their contributions to the Lord, even the first of their dough as a contribution to the Lord throughout their generations. There is something so comforting about this. Heaven is good. Despite our foolishness and rebellion, we will eat of the fruit of that land.

This continuity of God's eternal purpose did not mean that sin was suddenly OK. Even unintentional sin required sacrifice. Thanks be to God for His Son, the Lamb. The requirements of God have been fully met in His obedience and atoning death. Without this, nothing makes sense, and there can be no real peace. We have been forgiven.

High-handed sin against the Lord? I wouldn't try it... A Sabbath breaker was executed by God's direct instruction.

Israel needed to do all of God's Law. All of it. That was a burden that we and those who went before us could not bear. We could have worn the tassels on our garments. We could not have fully obeyed. Christ did that for us. That's why God can say, “I am the Lord your God.”

A Root of All Kinds of Evil

“Lovers of Money”

(2 Timothy 3:2, October 9, 2011)

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money,...

For people will be lovers of

Concerning the New Testament era known as “the last days,” Paul warns Timothy that people will not only be self-serving, they will also be money-loving. These qualities will be on display in the world, but they will also be seen in the church.

We might have some reasonable confusion about whether it is a good thing to be a lover of self. Does anyone want to defend the goodness of being a lover of money?

money

The love of money is not only found among the irreligious, but also among the most religious. It is not only exhibited among the outwardly successful, but even among those who consider themselves middle class or poor.

So many people live their lives with money accumulation as their chief goal. Because of this, the love of money, particularly for young and ambitious people, seems absolutely normal.

The Greek word translated here with the English phrase “lovers of money” has this range of translation possibilities: money-loving, avaricious, and covetous. It is used in only one other passage in the New Testament, where Luke says that the Pharisees were lovers of money.

One of the challenges with the love of money, which is a root of all kinds of evil, is that it blinds the person attacked by it. See Matthew 6:19-24. It is easier for others to see the love of money in us than it is for us to see it in ourselves.

One of the remedies to the problem of loving money is to give it away with a generous heart.

Christ is our eternal example of the cheerful giver, and the message of giving is at the heart of the Christian gospel. As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

Numbers 14

How quickly can you forget the promises of God? The Lord had made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, involving, among other things, a land. God delivered His people out of Egypt and had brought them, by His mighty hand, to the very place and time where that promise was about to be fulfilled.

But the enemies in the land looked like giants to Israel, and the Lord's congregation felt like grasshoppers in their sight.

The Lord had never suggested that they would receive the land because of their own knowledge or strength. The people received a bad report, a word of fear and faithlessness, and the consequences were devastating. All the congregation raised a loud cry.

They longed for death back in Egypt rather than the gift that the Lord had promised. They wanted to pick a Moses-replacement and make the journey back to slavery.

Moses and Aaron begged the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel, and Joshua and Caleb tried to persuade them. Their important message was not only the goodness of the land but the faithfulness of the Giver. God would bring them in. He could defeat enemies much more challenging than the Anakim. They should not rebel against the Lord.

Their response: The congregation was ready to stone them with stones, but the glory of the Lord appeared to the people.

God told Moses that He was ready to start everything all over with Moses, destroying all the rest. Moses reasoned with the Lord, pleading for mercy based on the Lord's own glory. The Egyptians and the inhabitants of the land must not be allowed to concluded that the Lord was not powerful enough to keep His promises. Moses only begged the Lord to be true to His own character, since the Lord is slow to anger and is able to forgive iniquity. He called to God's own mind His divine steadfast love and covenant faithfulness. Surely God's own heart was expressed by Moses as an inspired intercessor facing the demands of the Lord's own holiness. That may be hard to understand, but then the cross is hard to fathom. It is the place where the Lord's mercy and justice meet and we are saved by God's gift of Himself.

The Lord rightly loves His own glory. There is no one like our God. It is right that all the earth should see that He is powerful to save and that He hears the prayers of His servants for their own lives, for their families, and for the congregation that is named by His Name.

God did pardon, but that generation would not enter the land, except for Caleb and Joshua. The next generation would be brought into the land. The rest would die in the wilderness over the course of forty years because of their faithlessness.

Moses gave this divine verdict to the people, and the people mourned greatly. They then attempted to change their minds and go into the land as if God had not spoken His mind to them at all. Moses urged them not to go, but they would not listen, and they were routed.

When we pray as Jesus taught His disciples, we say, “Thy kingdom come.” Yet when we live as if God's promises were not trustworthy, we forget the achievement of the cross and the pledge of the resurrection.

Do you really want the kingdom of God for which the Son of God gave His blood? Listen to Jesus Christ. Do today what He calls us to do. Go where the Spirit of Christ leads. He will surely take us into the land!

Numbers 13

The promise of the Lord was clear. He was giving a land to the descendants of Jacob. The time had come for them to see that land. God commanded Moses to send representatives from the tribes of Israel into the land so that they could report back to the rest of the people.

The assignment He gave was specific. They were not sent out as military strategists who were supposed to assess the feasibility of Israel dispossessing the Canaanites from the land. They were simply to report what they saw. Were the people strong or weak? Were they few or many? Was the land good or bad? These were the sort of questions they were to answer. They were also told to be of good courage and to bring some of the fruit of the land for the people to see. After forty days these appointed representatives reported their findings to the people and showed them the fruit of the land.

All the men had seen the same land, yet only two of them saw that land with the eyes of faith, Caleb and Joshua. They knew that the land was Israel's, given to them by God. The others urged fear and faithlessness and even spread a false report about the land to the people, saying that it was a land that devoured its inhabitants. They claimed that “all the people” were of great height. When they looked back to themselves all they could imagine was certain defeat.

“We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

Generations later, long after Israel had first taken the land, a true giant of the Philistines, Goliath, would defy the people of the living God. Young David was able to see this brute with the eyes of faith. Others murmured the chilling assessment of sure defeat. David knew the power of the God of Israel working through His appointed servant.

Centuries after David, a descendant of this chosen king would stand up to powerful adversaries and proclaim a word of perfect faith. He was able to see more than the formidable opposition that gathered against Him. He insisted that in His father's house were many rooms, and that in His death, resurrection, and ascension, He was going to prepare a place for them. He knew that He came from the ultimate promised land, and that after men had rejected, dishonored, and killed Him, that they would not be able to prevent Him returning to the place from which He had come.

This Jesus, through His own blood and righteousness, has accomplished a stunning conquest over sin and death. He has led the way into heaven, a land of glory. His report to us is good. His instruction is to see the gift of God with the eyes of faith, and to take the land by the strength that God supplies. In His power we go forth to certain victory. We will not succumb to evil and fear. We will take the land that God has promised.

Numbers 12

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses. The occasion for this painful dissension was Moses' marriage to a Cushite woman. This was only the flashpoint of a larger rebellion. In their words they revealed their spiritual jealousy. “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?”

As with the complaining of the congregation at large, we are told that “the Lord heard it.”

Moses was an unusually meek man. Despite his own humility, even his brother and sister resented him as if he were pursuing an agenda of personal domination over others.

Moses might have ignored this offense, but the Lord would not. His words were direct: “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” The Lord visited them in a pillar of cloud, and He called to Aaron and Miriam. He spoke to them about their brother Moses. This Moses was more than a prophet. This servant of God was faithful in all God's house. God spoke to Him very clearly. Moses even beheld the form of God. This should have made Aaron and Miriam afraid to speak against Moses, for he was the most important servant of the Lord in his day.

When the cloud of God lifted, Miriam was leprous. Aaron now turned to Moses with submissive supplication, calling his brother “lord” and admitting their foolishness and sin. He pleaded with Moses for mercy for Miriam, and Moses pleaded with the Lord. “O God, please heal her – please.”

God heard the prayer of His servant Moses. There was a measured discipline of Miriam. She was shut outside the camp for a defined time period, seven days, but was then restored, and the camp of Israel was on the move again.

The Word of the Lord had come with power, love, and correction. Further danger was averted, at least for the moment.

Moses was a leading servant in the Lord's Old Testament house, but the Messiah was greater than Moses, since He is the builder of a new resurrection kingdom.

Like Moses, Jesus was a meek man, Many dared to oppose Him, speaking in opposition to Him, and even raising their hands against Him. Yet in their worst attack, the Cornerstone of a new resurrection house was being put in place, and mercy was established for sinners.

It is never safe to oppose this Jesus or to abuse His humble children. They are so close to Him that they are identified as the body of which He is the Head. Our only wise course is to take refuge in Him and to follow Him, and to submit ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ.

2 Timothy 3:2

“Lovers of Self”

(2 Timothy 3:2, October 2, 2011)

2 For people will be lovers of self,...

For

Paul wrote to Timothy about the nature of the New Testament era, the era of the gospel, the era where the truth of the resurrection is being proclaimed and displayed by the church. He told his younger associate that in this gospel era, people will be lovers of self. Is Paul being an optimist or a pessimist? Is he looking to a wonderful future time when people will finally love themselves, or is he warning Timothy that one of the challenges that we will face in this era is the sad development that people will be very selfish?

Answering that question is easier for us because of the word “for.” That word connects the present statement with the one that went before it, which reads, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” Paul sees this condition that he calls being a lover of self, as part of the difficulty of the present time.

people

As Paul speaks to Timothy about this era when we are waiting for the return of Christ, we should notice that he begins with the problems that come from people. People are extraordinary creatures with great potential for good. But relating to people and working together with people can lead to many troubles.

will be

Paul is not writing about something that might happen, but something that will be. There is an eternal weight of glory already for us in the heavens. There is also much opportunity for valuable service here on earth every day. But we must understand that whatever this trouble is with people, it will be a feature of the present hour, last we be unprepared for the kind of trials that are a normal part of life under the sun.

lovers of

Human beings were put on this earth to love. We will love, but we may not love what is most worthy to love. We have seen the most worthy example of love in the life and death of Jesus. There is no greater love than cross love. God sees the cross love of Christ and has made it to be the height of wisdom and power. Christ loved the Father there, and He loved you there. That love was costly.

self

While it is good to have a recognition of the blessings that God has given us in our selves, and an honest assessment of and appreciation for the gifts he has given us and the wonder of being a human being made in His image, we will be in a very sorry condition as a person if our highest love is for self.

Self care is good and necessary. But we must be willing to be lower, that someone else might be higher. If self is God, and the highest good, we will be utterly selfish, and any sacrifice will seem unworthy. If Christ is all, and the cross is the best love, then we will walk in the way of truth and love that the cross displays. Prepare yourself for this difficulty: In the present era, people will be lovers of self.