Numbers 12:2-3 Bible Study | Episode 752

August 27, 2024

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

Numbers 12:2-3   Bible Study | Episode #752

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 twelve. Numbers twelve. And we're dealing with the storm of meme story of Miriam and Aaron. And when they spoke out against Moses because he took cushite wife. Now, we dealt with the actual reason why yesterday. Now, now we're going to deal with how they approached it, and then obviously, we'll come back and deal with how God dealt with it and then how Moses dealt with it. Because Moses does something that is, I think, real important to see as the leader of people of Israel and as a sibling of his brothers and sister. His brother and sister. And so the story has a lot of components to it. And it's one of those stories kind of nestled into the book of numbers. If you didn't know it was there, you just miss it. You wouldn't see it. But it says, once they murmured, or they spoke against Moses because of the ethiopian woman whom he'd married, for he had married an ethiopian woman. Notice it says it twice, and it bookcases it so that. So that you'll understand that God is talking about. Well, he's talking about them, man, and that they are. Were upset that he'd married an ethiopian. So they said. This is what they said. Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has not. Has not he spoken through us also? And the Lord heard it. Now, the man, Moses, was very humble. More than all men who are on the face of the earth. There's a couple things that need to be kind of fleshed out here. Their question is not a bad question in the sense of, does God speak through many people? Yeah, he does. The Holy Spirit moves and uses a lot of people. And it is important that when you listen, first of all, for the office of teacher, someone who is a teacher or someone who professes to speak from God's word, it's important that you understand that that is a. It's a noble task. It's an important position, but it's also. It also comes with some consequences. It's a. It's not something to be taken lightly. It's not something to be done out of hand. I don't. I don't remember when. When God began to use me in that capacity, totally. It was actually as a teenager at some point in time. But. But that. That use is not something that. That should be sought out. And I don't. I've never really wanted to do this. In fact, I don't really love to do it now, but I feel the urgency of the call of God to do it. And. And then when you do. When you do what God has called you to do, when you do what God led you to do, it's important that you understand that he's doing it and not you. And so as you understand that he's doing it and that he's working his will in his way in the world by using you in whatever gift you have, whether it's teaching or whether it's God speaking through you or whether it's any of the other. Many, many, many other gifts that God uses. Uh, it's important to understand that God uses you and not. You're. You're not the one who's doing it, and you're allowing God to do it. And when I say allowing, you're, you're giving in. You're trusting him as much like you're falling backwards into his arm and allowing him to use you. You're saying, I give you. I give you myself, and I allow you to be who you are in my life. I'm on, let you use me for this. And that's what. That's what Moses did. He went up to that mountaintop where that burning Bush was, and he eventually gave in. But if you'll notice, Moses, if you'll remember the story, Moses didn't want to do it. He didn't want to go to Egypt. He didn't want to be the mouthpiece of God. In fact, he said, you know, I stammer when I speak. I don't have a great voice. I don't have a great speech pattern. I'm not. I'm not bold in what I say. I'm a little bit tongue tied. I'm a little bit. Well, I just can't do it. Send someone else. In fact, what he said at the very end, and God said, I've chosen you. I've chosen you for this, and God does that with all of us as far as our giftings. And so when you're listening to someone teach, you all listen to, you ought to hear from a lot of sources. And I say that as a teacher because I try to broaden my sources and hear a lot of people in how they see God's word and how they understand God's word. Not that I'm going to take it in and make all of it say, I'm not going to say in my own heart everything that somebody says is absolutely correct. And by the way, you shouldn't do that with me either. You should always heal what someone teaches you and then go to God's word and see if God confirms that by his holy spirit in his word. And you should listen to how they do it. I think there's some telltale signs of someone who is teaching God's word and whether or not they're doing it very well. One of the things they do is they stay in God's word. They go through and deal with God's word directly, and they don't use God's word to confirm what they're saying. They confirm what God's saying by using God's word. And so here you have to understand, Miriam and Aaron had not been, they're not the ones who heard directly from God, and God's going to mention that, but God's going to talk about that, but they're not the ones who'd heard from God. And so even though God had used them, and it's clear, and I think their question, their question is correct. Has it not God spoken through us? Yeah. Yes. And should people of Israel listen to them? Yeah, probably. And when they're, when they're speaking from the truth of God's word, when they're speaking from the truth of God's revelation. And that's a good way to understand it, too, how God has revealed himself to his people. When they're doing that, they probably should be listened to. But the question is whether or not, you know, one or the other, that that should not be, that you should not use that and say, a lot of times people get into the arguments between two spiritual leaders and how they see things. And the truth is, I have learned, as I've studied God's word and as I've taught for a long period of time, oftentimes, as I'm listening to two people who are, who are in a, in a, maybe not in a direct way, but an indirect way, they're in an argument over God's word. I found out that, you know, there's an aspect of what they see is correct on both sides that they. They just not miss. They're just missing the connection. They're not connecting with each other or connecting God's word together so that there is not a point of dissension between the two. And, listen, there have been great points of dissension in scripture ever since the church started, ever since the original church council called together by the first roman emperor, who was a Christian or could have been a Christian, probably was a Christian. And those arguments have been historical and great, and some of them have been real, legitimate arguments about whether or not someone was teaching something that was clearly heresy. But most of the time, the arguments and the issues that we have with each other come from either a lack of understanding or a lack of connection, an unwillingness to really kind of sit down and reason with each other and pray over things and reason with God and come to a conclusion. And so they're not from God. They're not an argument that is from God. They're an argument that's from the flesh and from mankind. And. And when they're dealing with this, they're not using God's word as saying, you know, Moses has said something that's not clearly from God. They're just saying, uh, you should listen to us also, because God spoken through us. Yeah, but Moses was the one he called to bring his people up. And when they would not go up on top of that mountain, Moses was the one who went up on that mountainous. And so he's heard from God directly. And they're using this as a ploy to get their way about their. And just to be straightforward. Their hatred, their dislike for a group of people because of some aspect of their nature that they cannot change. And you need to hear that the color of your skins, not. It's not something that you can. You can naturally change. There are things that are. That are the consequence of your own will and your own desires. And you can say, well, they were born with that will or that desire. Yeah, it's called a sin nature. We're all born with them. You can't. You can't say, well, that's what I want. That's how I. That's who I want to be, and. And you be that. But you. You can't fix being, uh. You can't fix being the color of your skin or the color of your eyes or the height or some of the things that we. We are just born with. You. Those things can't be fixed. And you should not hate people because of the way God naturally endowed them in their DNA. You, you can't, you shouldn't do that. And they were saying, has not God spoken through us? And, and Bible says God heard it. And God's going to stand up for Moses here. And I think that's the second most important thing you can get out of here. This is that goddess understood that Moses was not going to stand up for himself. He was very humble, more than all that were on the face of the earth. And the word for humble means meek. And it's a beautiful picture in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's a picture of a horse, a powerful horse that is bridled, meaning that is very sensitive to the will and the way of God. And a bridle sits on the back of a horse's gum line. It sits literally right behind the teeth of the horse. And that's a very sensitive spot on their mouth. And as they. As, as that bridle moves back and forth, that horse feels it. It's not painful, but the horse does feel it and knows which direction it's moving, left to right. And the horse is sensitive to that. And the bridal being God's revelation and the rider being God and the horse being Moses. Moses was very powerful. Obviously, the ten plagues of Egypt, parting of the Red Sea. I mean, you could see the power that Moses possessed, possessed that God gave him, and yet he was very humble, and he did not, he did not defend himself. And oftentimes we, when we're in these situations, we feel like we have to defend ourselves. And Moses just wasn't going to do it. Moses life and who he was stood for itself. And that's a great place to be as a Christian. When your life and the product of your life stands for itself, then you don't really have to spend a whole lot of time defending yourself. You don't have to fight for your own way and will. You don't have to struggle to be okay. If you live your life in such a way that it is a benefit and it is a, it's important for others. And, and you, you are light and hope to the world that will come out in the end. And Moses, even though he did not want to do what God had called him to do, even though that was, that, that was, he was very fearful about it, he was very worried about it. And he's any, he felt in his own heart that maybe he was not worthy of the call that God had for his life, when, when. When he accepted that call. He did it very well, and he did it very humbly. And only a humble man could go back to Pharaoh ten times and have pharaoh true him as he did, and yet have the power that Moses had and not use it in a corrupt or a personal way, rather than using the power of God and the way God had directed him. Only a very humble man could do that, and Moses did that. And so he didn't have to defend himself. God was going to defend Moses. God was going to handle Moses and handle how he, how he was treated and whether or not he was going to be the head of God's people. And Miriam and Eric, Miriam and Aaron are usurping him in that. And the reason they're usurping him is not for a godly reason. It's not to build the kingdom. It's not to. It's not to handle something that Moses is clearly an area, and you don't see that because God's going to handle it. But they're. They're pushing their own flesh in this situation. They're pushing their own insecurities. They're pushing, well, their own hatred. They're pushing the things that would not be from God, and they're trying to use God to legitimize their position. And that's just not godly. There's nothing good about it. And so as, as we think about these things, I wanted to make sure that we don't jump over these two verses, because Moses was a meek man, and God is going to defend him. He's going to defend him pretty directly in the next Bible study. But, but I. Miriam and Aaron were people who spoke God's word. They spoke God's revelation, but they weren't speaking God's revelation in this situation. They were running their own agenda. And so God handles it. But you need to be able to recognize when someone who was a Christian and who is, as in the past, spoken God's word, you got to know when they're speaking their own agenda and not God's word. And that's an important thing to get, because oftentimes, men and women get on their own paths and their own agenda, and they use what God has done in their lives in the past to legitimize their own purposes in their own way. We want to always be in the middle of God's will, and we always want to be searching out God's will for his.

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.