2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES

Wednesday in the Word

Second Baptist Church

November 13, 2019

Numbers 14

1. Verses 1-4. What we see in this chapter is a group of God’s people who are making the classic mistakes that the people of God often make. They are choosing fear over faith. Instead of trusting the God that has proved himself over and over again, they are choosing to return to bondage. Over and over again, the issue is faith. Will the people of God choose to trust God and God’s clearly anointed leaders or will they choose fear? Churches often make this mistake when they want to go back instead of moving forward. Moving forward requires faith, going back doesn’t. It should have been a night of great excitement, but it turned into a night of great anxiety. What should have been a night of great praise to God turned into a night of great regret! After hearing the negative report of the ten spies word spread fast among the camp that it was all a mistake. God had delivered them from Pharaoh, kept them for a year and sustained them in the wilderness supernaturally, but they are now ready to throw all of that away based on one bad report. The entire community was crying in fear, because they let a few people convince them that God was not able. It only takes a few faithless self-centered people to destroy a ministry. I have noticed that it is not unusual for fear to show its ugly head when the people of God are on the edge of a new blessing. God is about to bless them, and they are about to ruin their blessing, because they can’t trust God to do something smaller than what God has already done. The people were saying things like “If only we had died in Egypt” or “we should go back to Egypt.” Fear will cause you to overlook all that God has done and focus on what you are afraid of. Instead of embracing the future, they are letting fear put their focus on the past that almost destroyed them. They were so upset that they began to talk about getting another leader and returning to Egypt. Over the first ten chapters of Numbers they had been fully prepared to walk as Promised Land people - they had been ordered and organized; cleansed and purified; set apart and blessed; taught how to give and how to function as priests. Now God invited them to take the land - and they rebelled through their mourning. Unbelief made them think of God's good for them (the gift of the Promised Land) as something evil.

2. Verses 5-9. Moses and Aaron were overwhelmed with the discontent that was in the people. They fell on their faces in anguish. It is never easy leading the people of God, especially when they are dead set on finding anything to complain about. Some complaints can knock you to your core and cause you to want to give up. This is where Moses and Aaron are. They are just tired of the grumbling and complaining. The people can’t accept that God is asking all of them to step out on faith. The people are looking for God to make things look easy. God never promised to make things LOOK easy. Faith requires that things don’t LOOK easy. Moses and Aaron were overwhelmed, but Joshua and Caleb rose to their feet and declared in faith that surely God was able to do what God promised and that they should proceed to take the land. Joshua and Caleb warned the people to not rebel against God or believe that report of the 10 about things being too great for them to overcome.

3. Verses 10-19. The whole assembly heard Joshua and Caleb and decided to stone them along with Moses and Aaron. It was at this point that the glory of God manifested itself in the front of the Tent of Meeting and the voice of God spoke declaring judgment on the people for their actions. God was upset that the people didn’t trust God in-spite of all that God had done. God was furious and about to send a plague on the people. Moses intervenes and begs God not to strike the people down or the other nations would hear about it and declare that God was not able to bring the people into the promise-land. I personally believe that God was testing Moses here to see if he would be selfish or think of the people and God. God basically said that he could kill all of the people and do what he promised through Moses. God was telling the people that he didn’t need them, they needed HIM. Never make the mistake of thinking God needs you. Earlier Moses was overwhelmed, but when he saw that God had his back, his strength was renewed to the point that he even asked God to show mercy on the people for their rebellious actions. Moses loves the people and he loves God.

4. IV. Verses 20-23. God responded to Moses plea for mercy and declares that he won’t strike the people down with a plague, but he will not allow any of the people who saw the miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness to enter into the promise land. God said that those people had disobeyed God and tested God 10 times. Their lack of faith and rebellion cost them their blessing and prolonged their children’s blessing. They allowed fear to lead them into rebellion against God which in turn cost them their blessing before they even tried to obtain it. They rebelled against God at just the idea of taking the promise land. They hadn’t lost a battle or even broken a fingernail, and yet they thought it was a good idea to look at the blessing of new possibilities as something bad. Never look at a bright future as a bad thing from God.

5. Verse 24. God saw something in Caleb that was different. We know he saw this in Joshua as well, but the text points out that Caleb had a different spirit. I believe that Caleb never needed any convincing that God could do what God said God would do. Our goal is for us to have a different spirit like Caleb. Caleb had a faith filled spirit. A confident spirit. A non-complaining but trusting spirit.

6. Verses 25-35. God tells the people to go back in the other direction leading away from the promise land. God then tells Moses that the people who grumbled against him will surely die in the wilderness just as they complained they would. God was going to give them the very thing they accused God of planning. They accused God of leading them to the desert to die, and in the desert they would die. God declared that those over 20 who complained would not enter into the land, but their children would. God sentenced them to 40 years of wandering as shepherds in the desert suffering for their sins. The only adults that would be able to enter into the promise land were Joshua and Caleb because they believed God.

7. Verses 36-38. God did decide to strike the 10 men who spread a bad report among the people with a plague that killed them all. Only Joshua and Caleb were spared.

8. Verses 39-45. The people cried and wept bitterly after seeing and hearing the Lord’s judgment. The people decided that they should attempt to take the land despite God’s words. Moses warned the people that God was not with them, but they decided to go anyway only to be beaten in battle. God would not allow them to have something he was going to give them simply because they rebelled and complained against God and God’s leaders. Getting the blessing was not about their abilities, but about God’s will and God’s abilities.

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