The Chosen

Studies in Numbers

II Failure

B The Confirmation

1 The Chosen, Text: 17:1-13

Title: Honor the Ruler

INTRODUCTION

Right now as I am writing, our nation is in another election cycle. People are trying to make up their minds. God is not. We don’t know what He has already decided, however we are part of the earthly process. We must consult the Lord. We need to pray, not to change God’s mind but to help us do the right thing. For us in the 21st century this means consulting His Word and listening to the right advice. In our text the people of Israel were grumbling against God. Like us they would have said they were grumbling against Moses. They did not get to vote on their leader because he was appointed by God. We live in a democracy but they lived in a theocracy. They failed to see that attacking God’s representative in a theocracy is an attack on God. This becomes exceedingly clear because God takes charge and we read in verses 1-5, The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff. On the staff of Levi write Aaron’s name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe. Place them in the tent of meeting in front of the ark of the covenant law, where I meet with you. The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites.” This is not Moses problem, it is God’s. In Moses’ case the criticism was not justified and in our case it may be, but the point is how ready we all are to judge and criticize and to grumble. That solves nothing. So what did God do? He commanded repentance, respect and rectitude.

I REPENTANCE

First of all notice that everybody who opened his mouth is forced to face up to his words. In the wilderness there is a need for frequent repentance as we struggle, and we lose sight of the fact that we are responsible for our words. Everyone has a stake in this, as we read in verses 1-5. They must submit to the judge’s decision. We have a hard time doing this in the 21st century. In fact, people are still debating court cases from twenty or thirty years ago. This translates tragically into our spiritual lives. It is the reason we cannot accept God’s verdicts in our lives. Let us not forget that we live in the wilderness and Jesus is leading us through it. Due to what we now call political correctness leaders are bring forced to resign because they hurt someone’s feelings, or so the alleged victims claim. In order to escape being responsible we surrender to stereotypes. It’s all about me, me, me. We shift the responsibility to those with whom we disagree. We become victims and victimology is wide spread in our society and accusations abound. Repentance cannot exist in that atmosphere. The people of Israel committed the same sins. Can we learn to be responsible for our own mistakes from their wilderness lesson?

II RESPECT

The lesson was not easy because it involved being humbled publicly. Moses did exactly what the Lord commanded. And we read in verses 6 to 9, So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and their leaders gave him twelve staffs, one for the leader of each of their ancestral tribes, and Aaron’s staff was among them. Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the covenant law. The next day Moses entered the tent and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the tribe of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds. Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the Lord’s presence to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each of the leaders took his own staff. God had made a judgment and it was overwhelming, humiliating and embarrassing. It was commonly understood that God was in the tent, and it was also quite clear that God had performed a miracle. Ok, so it sprouted, you say, but as with an excess of enthusiasm in His judgment, God had made it flourish with budding, flowering, and bearing a crop all at once. This wasn’t just miraculous: it was super-miraculous. Talk about decisive! Thus, in public, they all got to look upon their dead sticks in contrast to Aaron’s living emblem of divine approval. The lesson was clear. Respect Aaron and you respect the Lord. This is a much needed lesson in today’s world. People do not respect authority figures. Among those disrespected are parents, police, teachers, elders, governors and others. This is clearly a barometer of spiritual devotion, because, if we truly love the Lord we love His Word and in it we are told to honor those whom God has placed over us. Let us give God the respect He deserves and demands.

III RECTITUDE

Repentance is the path to rightness of principle or conduct; moral virtue: we call this rectitude. If we expect Israel to come to their senses, I hope we’re not holding our breath. The exact opposite happens, as we read in verses 10-13, The Lord said to Moses, “Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the ark of the covenant law, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die.” Moses did just as the Lord commanded him. The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all going to die?” As you hear this account, i trust you are impressed with the confusion and opposition that is occurring in their rebellious minds. In 1949 George Orwell wrote a dystopian novel entitled “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Remarkably it captures the genius of this modern age, also confused in its rebellion. We lie to ourselves when we think that calling things by a different name will make them different. In his book Orwell posited a language called “Newspeak.” Newspeak is engineered to remove even the possibility of rebellious thoughts—the words by which such thoughts might be articulated have been eliminated from the language. Newspeak contains no negative terms. For example, the only way to express the meaning of “bad” is through the word “ungood.” Something extremely bad is called “doubleplus ungood.” In Big Brother’s regime war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. This should remind you of the politically correct language of this era. These days it is hard to say a sentence that does not offend somebody and create a backlash. In Orwellian terms, silence is freedom of speech. As we read, God acted here in this way because he did not want them to die but they conclude the complete opposite: that they were all going to die. How foolish we become when we ignore God.

CONCLUSION

Right thinking comes only with our repentance and faith in the Lord which produces a correct world view. When we are still in our sin, we are still in utter confusion. That is why so many of our problems remain unsolvable. All the solutions that are proposed fail because we do not understand the problem.