Numbers 12:4-8 Bible Study | Episode 753

August 28, 2024

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

Numbers 12:4-8  Bible Study | Episode #753

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, chapter twelve. And. And we're dealing with the story of when Miriam and Aaron murmured against Moses. They complained against Moses and were beginning to foment a little bit of a rebellion against Moses and basically over Moses manicushite wife. Usually these things have more depth to them than that. I'm going to imagine that was the catalyst they were using to bring about this rebellion. But they may have harbored some. Some anguish or some trouble with Moses because. Because he grew up different than them. But that being said, they did it. And we've discussed that in some detail in the last two Bible studies. Now we come to a place where God speaks to all three of them and especially speaks to Miriam and Aaron. Now, what I want to get from this, because there's a lot of things that are oftentimes kind of used for people's own personal purposes when they're using this passage. I want to focus on Moses and his position in scripture, really. And Moses position is very similar to David's position in scripture. There are two men in the Old Testament that are dual types. And what I mean by that, well, they're either in the Old Testament. Well, in the Old Testament and New Testament, they are what we call types or figures, and they're people that are pictures of something that is going to come about later on. They're in many ways foreshadowings of those things. Ruth is a foreshadowing of the New Testament church. So she is a. She's a foreshadowing of the church, by the way, Rebecca is also. And you go through scripture, and there's several of those. You have foreshadowings of New Testament believers. Abraham is a foreshadowing of a New Testament believer. You also have foreshadowings of Christ and the foreshadowings of Christ in scripture, in the old Testament are. There's many of them, many of the judges and many of the prophets have some aspects of being a foreshadowing of Christ, or at least they speak of Christ in that way. And obviously, Daniel, Joshua, especially Joshua, our foreshadowings of Christ. Then you get to these key figures in scripture. Aaron, and I mean, Moses and David, and Moses and David are dual types. And what I mean by that, well, therefore, both are foreshadowings of both Jesus and a New Testament believer. So you see the frailty you see there. They're their sin nature. I mean, you see them in their brokenness. You see them in their. They're just not quite living up the standard. And then yet, in some ways and in some roles, they are pictures of Jesus and his work and what he is going to do and what he did when he was alive on the earth and what he's going to do one day when he comes back. They're foreshadowing of that. And so they're neat characters in that way. And Moses is a neat character in that way because he. Because he does. He does mighty great things, miracles. He's a picture of Jesus delivering us out of Egypt. And then, yet you also see his frailty, his weakness, his struggle. You see him not handling some of the pressures of leadership. You see him not desiring to do God's will upon the mountaintop, but wanting somebody else to be sent to go and do those things. So, obviously, you see all the foreshadowings that take place. And David is very similar, very similar in many, many ways. And so, in this picture, you have Moses kind of playing both roles. Moses is an important figure here. He is the leader of God's people out of Egypt. He is. He is called the deliverer. He is the one who delivered his people out of Egypt. He's also called the prophet and Jesus. And he speaks of another prophet coming, and that is Jesus. And in fact, the Pharisees asked Jesus if he was the prophet, meaning that he was the one Moses had foretold. So you have that foreshadowing there, as you can see. And so when God speaks about Moses in this passage, I think we can gain a lot from it. I think we can gain a lot from understanding how God wants to have relationship with us. And we can understand how that might be different for us. It might be different for us when we're actually seeking God and for us when we're not seeking God. And we're not seeking after God. And this is a rebuke of Miriam and Aaron, especially Miriam, because we saw in the earlier passage that Miriam was the one who was mainly murmuring against Moses is because of this. She had a. To grind over this. And it may. It may have been a very personal thing for her, because we do not know. But. But Moses's first wife might have died, and she just didn't like the second wife. And she. She may have loved Moses, his first wife, and didn't want the second one. And I've seen that happen many, many times in life also. It says, suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Arian and Miriam, come out there. Come out, you three, to the tabernacle of meeting. So the three came out. God called them to meet in the middle of the middle of the encampment where the tabernacle would have been set up. Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both went forward, and he said, so God calls them out. He tells Miriam and Aaron to step forward. So Moses is behind them. But Moses is definitely hearing all that God has to say. And God speaks directly to them. Now, God speaks directly to them in all actuality, probably for the first time. Remember, they didn't get to hear what God had to say when Moses went up on the mountain to the burning bush, and they didn't get to hear what God had to say when Moses went up on the mountaintop and received the ten commandments. The first time, it's because they weren't there. The second time, it's because God's people refused to listen to God. And so they're going to get to hear from God first time. And this is a troublesome time to hear from God, and a troublesome time to deal with God in this direction. He said, God says in verse six. He says, then he said, hear now my words, meaning God's speaking to that if there's a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak to him in a dream. Meaning, when God speaks to prophets, those who he's going to give his word to, he usually speaks to them in a vision or a dream. He gives them, gives them a revelation. And that revelation is an understanding of him. And that revelation is meant for him to relate to God's people so that they can have a revelation or understanding of God. And by the way, a lot of the prophecies of the Old Testament are provided that way. God gave a vision or a dream to Ezekiel or Isaiah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets, and they relate that vision or dream to God's people. You see, that really, really spelled out in the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. You see in Daniel also, you see God giving them vision and then giving them an understanding and then giving that revelation to his people. What he's saying is, I speak to them in a very unique and special way. But it is, it is a, through visions and dreams. He says, not so with my servant Moses. And this is important because God values his relationship with Moses. He has an actual interpersonal relationship with Moses. And you see that here he says he is faithful in all my house, meaning that when I tell Moses to do something, he trusts me and do it. Does it. Now, does that mean he does it perfectly? No. Does that mean that he does it? That he does it willingly at the start? No, it doesn't. I mean, we know that. We know the stories. What we do know is that Moses, when he receives a revelation from God, when he hears from God, he believes God and does what he says and, and how well or how easy or how good he is at it is not the issue. It's not the issue. The issue is whether he's faithful to do what God has revealed to him. He says, not so of my servant Moses. He's faithful in all my house. I speak with him face to face. Now I want you to hear me. There isn't, there's all kinds of, you know, you know, I'm the anointed and I hear from God and, and you need to follow me and do exactly what I say because I hear from God. We get a lot of that from our pastors today. We don't get a lot of it, but you get some of it that I'm the one who wears from God. And we're going to do it my way because. Because, you know, I'm the God's chosen servant and I'm the anointed. Well, the anointed has, is a picture in the Old Testament of the filling of the Holy spirit. So we're all anointed. Now, you may be the leader of the church, and you may hear from God and give God's revelation to the church. And if you're doing that well and doing that in love and faithfulness and truth and power, then your people probably should listen to you and follow you. And if you're doing it that way, they're very likely are going to listen and follow you. That, that's not the that's not what we're talking about here. And so to use this to bolster your power is, is a misuse of this passage, especially considering that God says of Moses that he is humble. He's, he's the most humble man and all of the, in all the earth. And so if you're using this, you're likely using it because you're not very humble and you need something to bolster your influence or power. I would say the best way to bolster your influence and power is, first of all, that your love be manifested in your life. Second of all, that you give God's word to God's people regularly. Third of all, that you help them walk by faith in that. And there's going to be a likelihood that God is going to give you a place of honor and a place of blessing before your people, and they're likely to follow you if you do those things. You don't have to tell them that you speak for God and that you are the one who is the prophet of God and that you talk to God face to face. You're not, you're not remembered. God's telling Miriam and Aaron this, not you. And so it's not, it's important for us as God's people and especially God's leaders, that we follow the example of Christ in his leadership. And especially those Old Testament figures who are clear pictures of Christ and them living out their lives as types of Christ, which Moses clearly is. We should follow their leadership, that we should follow their example. And we usually don't have to pull the trump card of I'm the pastor. That, that shouldn't be used. In fact, God doesn't use it here. God says about Moses, he says, he says that he's faithful because he hears me, he believes me, and he does what I say. He's faithful in all my house. Was he perfect in all his house? No, but he was faithful. And you don't have to be perfect as a pastor. You don't have to be perfect as a leader to be faithful. But you do have to hear God and you do have to talk to God, and you do have to hear his direction and walk in that direction. And, and if you do, you are going to be found faithful. You're not going to be found perfect. We're not all, none of us are going to be found perfect, okay? But we, we can be found faithful. And God says, I want to find you faithful because you hear from me and you believe me and do it. And most prophets just get visions and dreams. But because Moses is a type of Christ, he's a picture of the New Testament church and a type of Christ, a New Testament believer. And Christ, you see that God speaks to him face to face. Well, obviously, God spoke to Jesus face to face, but he also speaks to us face to face. He wants to make his face shine upon us. He wants to reveal himself to us. He wants to talk to us as if we were friends and sit down at the table and reason with each other and us to understand not only his heart, but understand his will and his way that we might know him. And he wants that for us. And Moses quite clearly was a mandev who did those things. And so when he. When he's doing, dealing with Miriam and Aaron, he wants them to know that Moses is someone that he speaks face to face with. Moses is someone that he gives his revelation directly to. There doesn't have to be a. There doesn't have to be a desire for God to give me some kind of sign. Moses gets his, his revelation directly from God's mouth. And so he says, even plainly and not in dark sayings. And what he's saying, that is, I don't even have to give him as Jesus would, would do. I don't have to give him parables or I don't have to give him riddles that need to be figured out. I just speak to him face to face because he's willing to listen and to hear them. I don't have to teach him how to work things out because he doesn't have to work them out. He understands me and he knows me. And what a great thing for God to say about Moses. I think it's a powerful thing to say about Moses. And then he goes on to say, and he sees the form of the Lord, meaning, he listens to me, he trusts me, he believes me. He acts upon what I see, and then he understands how I am. God says that Moses understands him. He understands how he is. He sees the form of the Lord. He understands his purposes and his will in his way. This is a powerful statements God says then. So then he says, why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And it's a good question. Moses quite clearly was a great leader. Moses quite clearly was a man of power. Moses quite clearly was working out God's will. And you could see that manifest in the lives of the people that he was leading. And even though there were murmurings and rebellion, which always happened amongst God's people, God stood up for Moses. Notice Moses didn't have to stand up for Moses. God stood up for Moses. God is our defender. He is our shield. He is our strengthen. He is the one who defends us. We don't need somebody else to defend us. God defends us when we do what God has told us to do. God does his work and does his will and does his way. And so he is a great defender of his people when his people seek him out and know him. And so he says, you should have been afraid to speak ill of him because you know these things about him. You knew that he heard from me. You knew that he spoke to me face to face, and you shouldn't have said anything about him. You should have given him the benefit of the doubt. You should have expected that if he was doing it, he was doing it rightly, not wrongly. Now, that's something we ought to always give our leaders is the expectation that they're trying to do their best for the best of God's people. Now, sometimes you find out that they're not. Sometimes you figure out that they're not functioning that way. Sometimes you figure out that they're severely flawed in their leadership. Sometimes you figure out that they're not actually giving you God's word. They're not seeking out his revelation. They're just doing their own thing for their own purposes. Those things do happen, but you ought to give them the benefit of the doubt. If you definitely see their faithfulness, if you definitely see that they are true to God's word and true to his revelation, and that he is someone that is doing his best to guide you and guide you, your family, and guide those that you love in your church to do powerful things, to do big things for the kingdom of God. If that's the case, then you probably shouldn't say anything about them that's too negative. You ought to give them the benefit of the doubt. You ought to give them some grace in the matter. And God said, why weren't you willing to do that with Moses? And that's a good question. And we'll get to the results of this as Paul Harvey says the rest of the story later on this week. But right now there's a lot of good stuff to chew on as we start our week on this Monday morning.

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.