Numbers 11:21-23 Bible Study | Episode 748

August 21, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 11:21-23   Bible Study | Episode #748

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter eleven. Numbers, chapter eleven. I told you we're going to spend a little time in this chapter and in the next chapter because it's so interesting, it's so revealing. It's a passage that deals with the people and them dealing with God and how God relates to them. It's directly relational, too, because the people are complaining and they're whining. And the passage that we're going to deal with this morning ought to be somewhat of a message of hope for you. And I say that because going to see Moses doing what we do a lot when we're dealing with God and dealing by faith, he doesn't understand. He doesn't necessarily believe. I was asked earlier this week when we were dealing with, obviously, the resurrection, and it was resurrection Sunday, and there were questions out there, okay, why did this happen? Why did that happen? Why didn't they believe this? Why didn't they believe that? And the truth is, I am not amazed at people's capacity for unbelief. The truth is, I am amazed at people's capacity for belief, meaning for faith. Because the capacity of people to not believe God is innate to them. Why? Because they're born separated from God. So it would be natural for them never to ever be able to figure out how to trust God. The true miracle is that God has given us the ability to trust him. And that not only that, he's given us that ability. That's amazing in and of itself. But then what is amazing to me, and by the way, the Bible says to the angels, what is amazing is that we actually can take that great, mighty gift and wield it at all, meaning that we can walk in any way by faith. Because it is so difficult. If you really understand the true condition of man, the true condition of man's heart, the way we turn to our own wicked ways. No one is righteous. No, not one. Each has turned to his own wicked ways, meaning there's just nothing in us. And remember that righteousness comes by faith. There's nothing in us. We don't have any ability at all, not one of us, to walk by faith. And we turn immediately, almost always, to our own wicked ways. And you're going, what's this got to do with Moses and this passage? Well, remember, Moses is the writer of the book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and deuteronomy. He's the author of these books. And so when he writes these things, especially when he writes the negative things about himself, meaning the things that he did that was, you know, not full of faith, not powerful, not. Not that that made him. Makes him look weak or makes him look as an ineffective leader or makes him look like he doesn't trust God. When he writes these things, you got to know that he knows he's writing it to generations to come that are going to see him in that light. And so he has to, in many ways, humble himself and tell you his flaws. He does. And so if he's willing to do that, that means, number one, he's a powerful man of faith, but also that if he does all these things and yet has intense flaws, which Moses quite clearly had intense flaws, then he's saying to you, you can have this faith, too. And what happens here is when God said to them, okay, if you're going to whine and complain and act like that I don't love you, that I'm not. I don't want to take care of you, that I'm. I'm not a good God for you. I'm not. I'm not the God that you had in Egypt, and you'd be better off in slavery to the people and the gods of Egypt than be out here in the wilderness with me. If you're going to say that about me just because you don't have any meat, I'm going to give you meat. And by the way, you do have meat. You do have access to the things you need. But. But I'm gonna give you me. I'm gonna give you till. And notice you remember yesterday, he said, until it comes out your nostrils, till it becomes, you know, detestable to you, till you can't stand it anymore, I'm fixing to give you that meat. Now, Moses is. Moses is the one that's going to give them this message, okay? And God's telling this to Moses. I mean, he's not. He's not telling it to the people. He never does because people wouldn't come in and meet with him on their own. So, you know, in this passage, it starts in verse 16. So the Lord said to Moses, he's telling this to Moses. And notice how Moses reacts to God. Now, this is also important because Moses is willing to be real with God. And, you know, oftentimes I'm going to tell you, when you're praying and dealing with God, you're not willing to be real with God. You're not really willing to tell him the doubts of your heart and the struggles that you have. You're not willing to. What you want him to do is fix it. You don't want to really tell him where you are in your heart, even though the Bible says no one knows the heart of man except the spirit of God. So God's the one who really knows your heart. He knows your heart better than you know your heart. And when you're unwilling to really be real with him about your heart and your will and what you think, what you're thinking and what you're struggling with, you're hiding things from God that you can't hide from God because he already knows. Now, you may have to rewind that and. And listen to it again, but. But it's true. We oftentimes hide things from God that quite clearly from scripture. God already knows. And why we hide it, I don't know. And it started in the garden because they ate of the fruit of the tree. And what did they do? They tried to put on clothes sewn from fig leaves and hide from God as if they could hide from God as if he didn't know who they were or where they were. He's the Lord God. He had all knowledge. So omnipotence allows you to know everything, and he knows your heart. And so when they're dealing with this, Moses says to God in verse 21, and Moses said, the people who I am among are 600,000 men on foot, which what he's saying is there's a lot of people, God, this is 600,000 men. We're not talking about the children and the old people. That when he says on foot, that means they're. They're adult males that are able to fight, meaning they're 20 to basically 60 years old. 20 to 60 years old. On foot. There's 600,000 of them, which means there's millions of us. There's two, three, 4 million of us. He says. He says there. Yet you have said, I will give them meat that they may eat for a whole month. So, Moses, and you won't tell me to go tell them that they're going to have enough meat to eat for a whole month, and they're going to have so much that they have to eat so much of it that's going to make them sick. You know, if you all remember silver spoons, the little guy in silver spoons said to his brother, what you talking about, witless? I mean, that's. That's the moment we have here, you know? What are you talking about? God? Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them to provide enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the Sioux be gathered together for them to provide enough for them? What he was saying is, I. I don't know. They were going to get all this meat. I mean, what God? Come on now. You, you want me to tell them we're going to have enough meat to eat for a whole month, so much that they gonna make me sick. And where are we going to get that, mate? And I'm going to have to tell them, so I'm allowed to deal with it, and you're. You're just telling me to go tell them. Now, remember, we're just two years out from the whole parting the red sea thing. You remember all the plagues, the Nile river turning to blood? The. The death angel coming, the, the pillar of fire, the smoke. They still got the smoke in the pillar of fire. I mean, what, you know all the plates you do. Y'all remember them? You know, the sun turned dark. Hail. Fire. Hail coming down. I mean, we're. We're just two years away from that. I mean, listen to me. Two years. We're two years away from that. And Moses is saying, how you gonna do this? Oh, by the way, the manna from heaven, less than two years away from that. God started providing that not too long after they came out. So God's been giving them food to eat on the ground that they did nothing for. For a good long period of time right now. Good. I mean, long period of time. And Moses is saying, and you want me to go tell them, where are we gonna get this meat? Where are the. Are you talking about God? Isn't it amazing? Remember, Moses is writing this. Isn't it amazing? No matter what you do or how you walk with God, or even the faith that you exhibit in that walking, Moses exhibited a lot of faith. He had to walk through a whole lot of fear, fear of death, fear. Every time we went to see Pharaoh, there was a chance he would die. He had to deal with the, when he's leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and they're chasing him with chariots, not only him, but everybody else dies. Remember when Pharaoh said you can't make bricks without straw? And I'm not giving you a straw, so you better glean the fields at night so you can make the bricks during the day. He could have been killed by the Israelites for that. Moses walked through a whole lot of faith, a whole lot of faith that would lead to his death. He walked through a whole lot of it. And now he's saying to God, how are you going to do this? How am I going to tell them that? I don't know how many idea how you're going to do this. Remember, walk by faith and not by sight. Well, it's not always easy to do that. And if one of the greatest men of scripture, one of the greatest men of faith, I mean, you know, when the Jews talk about the greatest people of the Old Testament, number one on the list is Moses. Abraham's the father, but Moses is the, you know, he's the preeminent example. You got, basically, you got Abraham, Moses and David with Elijah thrown in if you want to have a Mount Rushmore. I mean, Moses is, Moses is a great example of faith. And he's written this and he is saying to God, after all that he's been through with Goddesse, he's saying to God, how are you going to do this? And I can't tell them that. Hmm. Verse 23 is really, really a cool verse. You probably ought to memorize what God said. And the Lord said to Moses, has the lower arm been shortened? Now what does that mean? Does that mean that God shrunk his arm? No. Well, he's asking the question. My arm is a representation of your power. By the way, you know, when we do the, we throw arm up, bend up and act like we got a muscle, you know, showing our muscles. That's a, that's that. Don't you think about that. When you think of armed in scripture, that that is a clear, the word arm in scripture means strength. Okay? So when it's talking about the arm of the Lord, you know, the arm of whoever, whatever. Whenever you talk about an arm, you're talking about the strength of that person. And when God says this, he says, has my strength been shortened or has my power been limited? And that's a good question. He's saying, you know, we did all this stuff as somehow in the last two years, my strength been limited. I mean, am I limited in some way by somehow that I don't know? Now you shall see whether I will say, whether what I say will happen to you or not. God said, has my strength been shortened? Has my power been lessened? I'm going to show you that I do what I say. Well, Moses already knows that, but he's got to be reminded again. He's got to be reminded again that, you know, I do these miracles. I'm the Lord God. I do these things. This is who I am. And if anybody, if anybody in human history should know that it's Moses, and yet he doesn't. How can you listen to Jesus say he's going to go to Jerusalem, be handed over the gentiles, be crucified, and be raised again? On the third day, go to the tomb as Mary Magdalene did. See Jesus, I mean, see an angel. And the angel say, and she saw Jesus when he, when she ran back the second time. But the first time she sees an angel, he says, he's not here. He's risen. So she goes and tells John, and she goes and tells Peter. And what does she tell him? She says, somebody's taking Jesus. Not that he's risen. She says, somebody's taking Jesus. I mean, how can you hear God say that? Jesus himself say that. Go to the tomb on the morning when he said he would do it. See the tomb empty. See an angel. Angel tells you he's not there. He's risen. While you seek the living among the dead, go back to Jesus. Go back to Peter, go back to the disciples and say, somebody's taking Jesus body. Is that the response? Because man's heart is so built toward evil, sin, lessness, that it's hard, and I want you to hear me. That's why God is so loving, so compassionate, so kind, so gentle and so forbearing or patient. That's the reason God is that, because he knows. He knows that it's just not easy for us. It's so hard for us to use that gift of faith. It is just so, so hard that even Moses can't do it. And so God says, hey, have I been. Have I been neutered? Am I. Am I. Am I not as powerful as I used to be? Has my arm been shortened? Do I not have the strength? Is this how this is going to work? He says, now you shall see whether I. Whether what I say will happen to you or not. He's saying, I'll show you again. I'll show you again because I'm God. And, you know, I'm thankful that God does that. Very, very thankful that he's patient, kind, and loving, and that I'm one of his. And he at least gives me time to trust him in even the smallest ways that I do. I hope to trust him greater and more. I hope to walk in my faith in higher, higher and higher levels. But I'm going to tell you, I've been doing it now for 40 years, that I can remember. In 52 years of my life, I've been doing it. And I'll tell you this. It ain't easy. You know, as the Cheetos Cheetah says, it ain't easy being cheesy. It ain't. I know it ain't. For those of you not from the south, it's not. But, uh, God knows and he understands and he says, that's okay. I'll show you again. I'll show you again. I'll show you again. I'll show you again. And then he counts every time we actually walk by faith. Every time we actually walk by faith with him, he counts as. Counts it as righteousness, and he rewards us for it. Wow. What a God to know how poor we are at it. In any hint of faith in us, he loads us up with righteousness and credits our account with great reward. Just because we trust.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.