Text: Numbers 14

Context: The setting is 15^th B.C. in the ancient Near East. Israel is again demonstrating weak, anemic faith in God, and they largely turn upon their human leader Moses who–yet again–intercedes before God on their behalf.

Numbers 14 is the historical account of yet another dramatic unfolding of the gospel in the Old Testament. It’s the story of God’s unchanging word; of sinful humanity; of God’s prophetic mediator and leader; of sacrifice; and judgment. All of this is in Numbers 14. 

The chapter opens with the people of Israel whining about having it better in captivity in Egypt. Why all this struggle, Moses? Why not let us be like the rest of the nations—relatively comfortable slaves to pagan rulers: “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt” (Num 14:1-4 ESV). 

And what does God do? Does He immediately judge the people for their hardheartedness? Does He vanquish them? No. He has a mediator, Moses, who intercedes on behalf of a sinful people. Why? Because the “LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression” (Num 14:18a ESV). 

Connection to Our Day: God’s people are to live by God’s words, by His covenant promises, but we are just like unbelieving Israel. We demand the comforts of this world. We don’t want to walk by faith in God but by sight upon the lures of today.

And yet God has His one and only ultimate prophet, priest, and king, and His name is not Moses or David or Caleb or any military or political leader, but rather Jesus. He’s the only fully faithful One. Will we look to Him, or will we perish in the wildernesses of this world? 

Encouragement: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort disobedience” (Heb 4:11 ESV). That rest, that land of promise, that milk and honey imagery that Scripture uses throughout to teach, points to Christ. He’s the One to whom the wandering soul is to look, because He alone has conquered and is the installed King of kings and Lord of lords. 

Text: “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

God has been gracious to me over the years by placing wise people in my life, especially at opportune times. Our paths have crossed at times when I needed to learn something, needed to see something, perhaps as a confirmation of a suspicion or hunch I had. I’m a big believer in the providence of God and the sovereignty of God.

I cannot say that I actually believe there is such a thing as an accident. Because if one admits the category of  accident in one’s thinking, he is necessarily admitting that there is no superintending guidance or overarching purpose in events, but instead randomness. I don’t think that at all.

Even with tragedy, I think God’s hand superintends all things. In short, I don’t think there are any rogue molecules or atoms outside of God’s control. Either God is sovereign, or all is randomness. As one of my favorite books has it, it’s either chance or the dance. Christ says, not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from God’s decree (Mt 10:29).

Encouragement: It can be discouraging if we look out upon the cultural landscape and throw up our hands and say, “Ah, it’s all lost. The fools have won.” They demand we save the turtles but abort the children. They demand men are now ‘birthing persons’ but they cannot tell you what a woman is. It’s madness at such a level that it’s not even parody anymore. It’s just pure silliness and utter folly.

Therefore, thoughtful Christian, cultivate relationships with the few, the wise, and pour into those who have the wisdom to know the difference between the sage and the fool. Folly is not a winning strategy. He who captures souls is wise (Pr 11:30). And wisdom is known by her children (Lk 7:35).

Made it home a few moments ago and had some girls behind the house to greet me:

For the almost-50 folks coming to our Monthly Fellowship this afternoon at 5 p.m. we will see you soon. Taco bar, with all the fixings.

Plus, Carrie Jane and I have the communication course scheduled to lead us through tonight. You’re going to have a blast.

For Sunday’s time in Scripture we will be in Matthew 8:14-17.

See you soon.

This week when I was in the Midwest I read a book that arrested me via its singularity (pun intended). The book was actually recommended to me in another book about polymaths, thinking for oneself, and trusting your instincts. I bought Thiel’s book because it sounded interesting. But it was more than interesting; it was wise.

I now have notes, annotations, underlinings, stars, check marks, et al throughout.

If you want to see what a genuine intellectual/writer/lawyer/billionaire/businessman/inventor/capitalist can teach the teachable, I cannot recommend this book heartily enough.

When I fly I love to read on the plane. Most folks in my experience prefer to pop in ear buds and watch movie after movie, or pay for internet and scroll, scroll, scroll. Image after image, video after video, till the plane lands. But so it goes.

This week during work and plane trips I read a short book entitled Leaning Into the Liminal. By liminal, the author means threshold, rite of passage, or phase. Limen in Latin means “threshold.”

The book is written for those of us in pastoral care who are charged oftentimes with shepherding people through spiritual thresholds in their lives due to, for example, death of a loved one, illness, separation, financial change, combat/war, or trauma in its myriad manifestations.

Here are a few nuggets I found helpful in the book:

“Liminality is about ambiguity, transition, and transformation. Death (in all forms) embodies these elements. It marks the end of life as we know it and the beginning of something different and unknown. Like other liminal experiences, death compels us to confront our mortality and question the nature of our existence” (p. 69).

“The archetypal symbol of a healing passage is the pilgrimage. The notion of spiritual pilgrimage takes on great iportance as one figuratively moves from one state of being to another. In pilgrimage, an extended and often difficult journey becomes a process of separating from the given, everyday world. Pilgrimage entails stepping away from daily routines and expectations and moving with special deliberateness toward a place where one might be changed . . . . Movement away from the given world and toward a distant goal can create a wide threshold of transition and transformation” (p. 60).

“One of the fundamentals of narrative theory is the idea that people have many interacting narratives that constitute their sense of self, and that the problem story they bring to therapy is not limited to this sense of self but is influenced and shaped by cultural and contextual discourses about identity and power” (pp. 9-10).

As one who believes fully that stories are soul food, I find the last quote quite moving. The stories by which we live and are informed shape and reshape our lives as long we tell them and carry them, or to use my favorite writer’s words, as long as we continue to carry the fire.

I am in Indiana this week. While here a buddy of mine from back home sent me a picture of an owl that appeared to be looking right at him. My buddy thinks this is a short-eared owl (I don’t know; my bird book is at home). All I know is that he’s arrestingly beautiful and somewhat menacing, too. He just looks indomitable. I had to include the picture.

Second is a picture I took this morning as the fog blanketed the endless cornfields of Indiana. I never tire of pastoral scenes. They speak to me in ways that remain deeply mysterious and inescapable for me.

The story is that there actually is a story, and every story has an author. A tale is being told because there’s a coherent narrative.

What is it about a tune? I was rolling along and then … Bam! Journey’s “Still They Ride” came on. And I was back. Back to where so much began.

Small-town life, where I walked the railroad track and used a week’s worth of saved quarters from lifting couches and loveseats to purchase a bottle of Mountain Dew and a Snickers from the gas station. It’s a Circle K now, but when I was a tyke, it was not that, but a little country store where the lady in a black tank top and raspy smoker’s voice knew me and my cousin, Robert, as we came with our quarters to drop into the slot for Asteroids and PAC-MAN, then bite into our Snickers for which we’d saved all week.

Seems silly sentimental now, but it was all so real then … and as I rolled down the road and Steve Perry’s voice launched me once again into nights riding the blacktop country roads, blasting Journey and dreaming of girls, smelling girls’ perfume in the skating rink that was but a tin tent but that we thought a haven of damsels. It washed over me again. The power of music in youth. Still they ride … through the night.

Jesse rides through the night
Under the Main Street light
Ridin’ slow

This ol’ town, ain’t the same
Now nobody knows his name
Times have changed, still he rides.

Traffic lights, keepin’ time
Leading the wild and restless
Through the night

Still they ride, on wheels of fire
They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive
Chasing thunder

Spinning ’round, in a spell
It’s hard to leave this carousel
‘Round and ’round
And ’round and ’round

Still they ride, on wheels of fire
They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive
Chasing thunder

When I travel I tend to read books from genres I would not ordinarily read. I prefer classics, history, and theology. But this week it was Thiel’s Zero to One.

In it he (and/or his co-author) penned this zinger: “Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.”

Because of my spiritual concerns for those I care about, and because I have remaining loyalties to ground-up, local, individual religious liberty and sanctity of human life convictions, this zinger struck a deep chord.

Who do you know that is a man or woman of courage and conviction in action? The question answers itself.

I was reading Scripture this morning. In Psalm 125 the writer uses imagistic language to contrast two ways of living: restless evil vs. enduring peace.

In verse one the poet writes, “Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever” (Ps 125:1 ESV). The literary stage is set via imagery. One type of people (the godly) are pictured as a city on a hill, abiding forever.

The implication of its opposite should be clear to readers. The wicked (the ungodly who hate God) are restless and unsatisfied unless they’re tearing down and disrupting. They have to steal, kill, and destroy. That is their nature.

Here’s a line of poetry that should shake us to our core: “For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong” (Ps 125:3 ESV).

Connection to Our Day: When I read that universities are now canceling graduation ceremonies because the mobs of imbecility are tearing the schools down, I have to go, “Well, yes, what should you expect? You’re surprised that godless, useful idiots loot, demolish, scream, and behave as hoodlums. That’s what you’ve raised them on–nihilism, godlessness, solipsism, atheism, and feelings. Not truth, not the understanding and knowledge of the holy, not Scripture, but just hate, emotion, entitlement, and nonsense. You’re reaping the whirlwind you have sown, and you want us to be surprised?”

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/may-6-anti-israel-protest-colleges-campus-police-arrest

Be encouraged, Christian pilgrim. Your lights will become more evident as the darkening tides of secular hate cover the lands.

When a civilization rejects God, rejects the Christ of God, chaos eventually ensues. It’s been the same pattern since Genesis 3.

And when the purple-haired urchins scream for lunch money but cannot articulate a coherent thought, just know that they’re reaping what they’ve sown, and all they know how to do is destroy everything. Their drug is wielding scepters of wickedness.

I have a buddy who is uncanny in his ability to send me a text with words of wisdom at opportune times.

Sometimes it is possible to grow discouraged, we would all surely admit, especially as we see the continued disintegration and imbecility of our times. And I am so encouraged when my buddy sends me texts like this one he sent me yesterday: “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.”

I am not for certain who said it or penned it. For all I know, he did. He has some zingers. But this one put wind in my sails. Here’s why.

I think we’re at a crossroads in our day. For Christians, it is my view that we are not to retreat. We are to “go into all the world” because Christ has all authority (Mt 28). We’re to disciple the nations, not retreat from them. We are not to do this by force like Islamists do it, but by modeling and heralding the law of God and the grace of God in the gospel. We point people to God’s holiness, our sin, Christ’s person and work, and our need to flee to Christ in repentance and faith, and in Him we find welcome and rescue and restoration.

I’m not a political person at all, frankly; I despise politics. I’ve had to shake the hands of bureaucrats, and it is akin to handling reptiles. That is also the imagery Scripture uses to describe evil and soldiers of Satan (dens of snakes; broods of vipers, etc.).

We are to bear witness, however, to the gospel, not hide the light of the gospel under a basket. We are to be salt and light. How clear is this in Scripture! The fact that we need to even stress it is an indictment. The gospel is to compel Christians to bear witness to its power in our daily lives.

But the church, what about the church? The mission of the church, as I understand it from Scripture, is multifaceted. Here are some of the church’s directives from Scripture: worship; service; observance of the sacraments; prayer; fellowship; evangelism; discipleship, etc.

We’re at a crossroads in our day. The temptation is for some believers to cower rather than to call upon the Lord. When David went to battle with Goliath, the unbelieving world scoffed at David. How could a mere boy slay a giant of a man, a tested warrior? But David did not purport to be a political savior or a John Wick of the 900s B.C. No, he was God’s man who knew God and knew God’s power. The sling and smooth stones were just the means that the King of kings used through the obedience of David. That’s the key: obedience to show up for the battles but in the power of God. It’s dominion God’s way, but God’s way calls for courageous warriors.

Jesus is the Lion of Judah as well as the Suffering Servant. Gentle and lowly, yes, but also the King who walked out of a tomb, stilled the seas, raised cadavers, spoke light from darkness, granted sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk, and cast demons into hell. He’s the One before whom the demons tremble.

We need discerning and courageous soldiers for Christ, that is my view. Paul knew it and lived it; Stephen knew it and lived it; Peter knew it and lived it; David knew it and lived it; Esther knew it and lived it; Daniel knew it and lived it; the apostle John knew it and lived it; John the Baptist knew it and lived it.

Did they all fall short many times? Of course. Who doesn’t? Just one, of course–the Christ of God. That’s the point. He’s the Hero of the story of redemption, the metanarrative of all narratives, the Lamb and Lion, the Logos, the Anointed One, the Holy One of God. He’s the Warrior and the Gardener who calls His people to take dominion and herald His saving message to all who will hear and come to the table prepared for them.