Daily Scripture Reading Numbers 14:11-25
Thomas was forty-one, lived in a quiet suburb, and worked as a project manager at a midsized engineering firm. He was also an ordinary, non-famous Christian. He read his Bible most mornings, took his family to church on Sundays, and believed the things the creeds said without embarrassment.
Lately, he had begun to notice how often he felt like a guest in his own country. It wasn’t dramatic. No one had banned his church, and no one had come for his Bible, but the default settings of the culture had shifted.
At work, the new diversity training framed traditional Christian sexual ethics as one of several “harmful ideologies.” His daughter’s sixth-grade teacher had sent home a note explaining that “families come in all shapes” and that assuming a child had a mom and a dad could be exclusionary. On the news, people who believed what Thomas believed were routinely described as the problem that needed to be solved. He didn’t want to rule anyone. He just wanted the world to feel normal again.
One Tuesday evening, after dinner, while his wife folded laundry and the kids argued over whose turn it was on the tablet, Thomas said it out loud for the first time, “I’m tired of being the weird one.”
Sarah looked up. “Weird how?”
“Like we’re the last people on earth who still think marriage is between a man and a woman and that unborn children are actually children. I open my mouth at work and people look at me like I just defended slavery.” He rubbed his face. “I want to live somewhere—sometime—where the things I believe are just… ordinary. Where most people go to church or at least respect it. Where the majority doesn’t treat my convictions like a personality disorder.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment. “You want to be in the majority.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
Humans naturally want to be in the majority. When Christian beliefs are the minority belief system, it is very tempting to abandon Christian beliefs in favor of something that is acceptable to the culture. The 14th chapter of Numbers teaches us that God rewards those who are willing to stand up for the truth, even when the truth is very unpopular.
The 13th chapter of Numbers tells us that Moses sent 12 leaders, one from each tribe, to spy out the land of Canaan. After 40 days in the promised land, the spies came back and described a land flowing with milk and honey, but also inhabited by very strong people who lived inside strongly fortified cities. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, were in favor of entering the land. The other ten spies, and the entire congregation, did not want to enter the land because they thought they would die. Instead, they threatened to stone Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, appoint a new leader, and return to Egypt.
Num. 14:11 ¶ Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have done in their midst?
Look at the word “despite”. Despite all the miracles Yahweh had performed, the plagues in Egypt, crossing the Red Sea on dry land, manna on the ground every morning, and an abundance of quail, the Israelites still did not believe that Yahweh could do miracles in the future, such as conquering the land of Canaan for them.
Num. 14:12 I will strike them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”
Yahweh was so frustrated with the nation of Israel that He wanted to destroy them and turn Moses into a nation to replace them.
Num. 14:13 ¶ But Moses said to Yahweh, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your power You brought up this people from their midst,
Num. 14:14 and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, O Yahweh, are in the midst of this people, for You, O Yahweh, are seen eye to eye, while Your cloud stands over them; and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
Num. 14:15 Now if You put this people to death as one man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,
Num. 14:16 ‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land which He swore to them, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
Ponder Moses’ first instinct. His first reaction was to think about how any action would affect Yahweh’s reputation. Some people read this and think Yahweh was being childish and petulant. However, Yahweh may have been testing Moses to see how Moses would react to the offer of being turned into a nation.
Num. 14:17 So now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared,
Num. 14:18 ‘Yahweh is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.’
Take note of the phrase “He will by no means clear the guilty”. Many people today think God is all love and grace, and would never throw anyone into a lake of fire. However, Moses understood that while Yahweh is loving and forgiving, He does punish the guilty.
Num. 14:19 Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Num. 14:20 ¶ So Yahweh said, “I have pardoned them according to your word;
Num. 14:21 but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of Yahweh.
Num. 14:22 Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I have done in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice,
Notice the number “ten”. This was the tenth time the Israelites had done something like this to test Yahweh.
Num. 14:23 shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it.
Yahweh forgave the Israelites and did not wipe them out. However, there was a consequence for their rebellion. The men who did not believe in Yahweh’s ability to conquer the land for them never entered the land of Canaan.
Num. 14:24 But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his seed shall take possession of it.
Don’t miss the word “different”. Caleb was different than all the other Israelites, and he was rewarded for being different. Yahweh promised that Caleb would enter the land of Canaan.
Num. 14:25 Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; turn tomorrow and set out to the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”
Many Christians today struggle to be different than the world, because humans naturally want to be in the majority. However, God commands us not to conform to the world. Just as Yahweh rewarded Caleb for standing up for the truth when he was in the minority, so too God will reward us for standing up for the truth even when we are in the minority.
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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”