I have been building a deck in my backyard this summer, right now I am placing the finishing touches on it. Before I built my deck, I looked through different deck plans, and compared the different kinds of deck materials and figured out pretty much what I needed. Then I went to three different stores that advertise every week in the paper about having great deck materials. All the ads from these stores promise that buying materials from them is easy as 1,2,3.
Now, the great thing about each of these stores is they all have a computer program that helps determine the materials needed for the deck. What you do is you give the salesperson details about the size and materials of your deck and – wha la – the computer spits out a list of materials and a pretty accurate cost estimate.
So I go to the first store and ask the salesperson if she can help me. She looked around to see if anyone else was available and seemed a bit hesitant. Seeing her hesitation, I told her I could wait for someone else to help me, “No, no, no, I can help you, I use the deck program all the time, its just not my favorite thing to do.” “Uh oh, this doesn’t look good”, I thought. Well she works up the numbers – wha la – a cost estimate….except as we look at the printout there is all kinds items that I don’t need on my deck. After finding several problems with the estimate, I asked the salesperson to get someone else to help her figure this thing out. But, no one else could help. So, I thanked her for her time and went to the next store.
After having a little bit of trouble find out exactly where I get the estimate for decking materials, I was directed by a nice young man to a counter in the back of the store. I told the lady behind the counter that I was building a deck, and that I needed an estimate. She told me she wasn’t available to help me. I looked around, and in the entire lumber area the only two people that were there were this woman and myself. She wasn’t helping anyone else, in fact she was just sitting there. So I asked, “Is this the place where I get a estimate if I want to build a deck?” “Yes, it is”, she replied. “Well, can you help me put together an estimate for a deck?” “No…well…yes I can help you…..but….Frank is the one who usually does that.” “Ok, where’s Frank?” “He’s at lunch.” So I sat down and said. “Let me get this straight, this is the place where I go to get an estimate to build a deck, and you’re the person who is at the place to give an estimate for building a deck, but you can’t help me, only Frank can, and he is at lunch.” “Oh, no, I can help you. I give deck estimates all the time...but Frank, he usually does the decking estimates.” “Well can you help me then, since Frank is not here?”
At this point, the lady behind the counter just stared at me.
So I said. “I understand”. And started to walk away. As I was leaving she shouted after me, “Frank will be back…at some time….”
Ok, as I walk into the third store I’m thinking, “Holy Smoke, it is going to be a lot harder to build a deck than I thought.
I enter the third store. I am very quickly directed to the counter to help me with a deck estimate. A young man immediately stops what he is doing, sits down at a computer, proceeds to put together a estimate and - wha la -, in less than ten minutes I have in my hand a several page printout with deck building plans, a list of materials and a cost estimate. “If you order today, we can have it at your house by the end of the week.”
I’m thinking, “I wonder if Frank is still at lunch.”
All these employees were charged with helping a customer with get an estimate for building a deck – the actions of one employee helped, the actions of the other two employees actually got in the way of helping.
Here is what we see in our Scripture this morning. God has brought the people of Israel to a place called Kadesh, which means ‘holy’, and here the Almighty God will show these people his awesome holiness. This is to be a life changing event for these people, and Moses…Moses, actually gets in the way of the people’s experience, and by his action, he prevents the people from fully realizing how holy and awesome God is. The result we see is that instead of being called Kadesh, a place of holiness, it is called Meribah, a place of contention…and it only took one man for things to fall apart….
Moses, he gets in the way of people learning and understanding who God really is. Moses by his actions, in effect, places a veil over the eye of the people so they cannot see the full holiness, the full awesomeness of God. Moses is one of the greatest and most righteous people in all of Scripture, and still, he is able to get in the way of others knowing and understanding who God is. If this great man Moses can get in the way, certainly we can too. Let us examine the Scripture before us.
The people of Israel have been out in the wilderness from about 37- 38 years, depending upon what biblical scholar you look at, and at this point, they are again ready to enter into the promise land. Back in chapter 13 we saw that the Israelites refused to enter the promise land when ten of the twelve spies reported that it would be too difficult to invade the promise land. Because they refused to enter the land the Lord God said that anyone 20 years and older would not enter the promise land but die in the desert. At this point in the journey through the desert, most of the people who fled the land of Egypt have died. The average life span at that time was about 40 years of age. Understand that almost all of the people who stand before Moses are not the same people who have stood before him in the events we have seen in the past.
There is a similar incident in Exodus 17 where Moses is told by God to strike a rock with his staff because the people are complaining – that is a different place, a different rock, and a different group of people.
When we read this section of Scripture through it appears that God is being quite hard on Moses. It seems like a very small thing that Moses does wrong. You know, we see that God asks Moses to speak to the rock, and instead, Moses strikes the rock, twice.
Now, some will look at this story and say that God did what he did because Moses was angry, or because of what Moses said, or even what Moses did – not speaking and instead striking. Now all though ideas are true enough, but they in themselves, or even taken together do not explain what is going on here. Let’s take a look at the full context to get an idea of what is going on here.
We see Miriam has died (verse 1), this is a precursor to the deaths of Aaron and Moses. Miriam will not go into the promise land because she was the instigator of turning the people against the leadership of Moses. We saw this in chapter 12. Miriam is punished with leprosy for a week, but here we see she will also not enter the promise land. We could say that Moses is upset about the death of his sister, but there is no indication of this in the Scripture.
The people gather and complain about their circumstances. They are now I the desert of zin (with a Z) which is a much harsher place than the desert of sin where we saw them last. On the surface this situation looks just like the situation we saw in Exodus 17. The people complain, Moses goes to the rock, and the people receive water. But this situation is completely different. In Exodus 17 the people complain bitterly. Here, the people are in despair.
The words the people speak in Hebrew clearly show a people who are not angry, or a people who are about to rebel, or a people who are about to overthrow Moses. No they are a people who are worn out, exhausted, at their wits end – it is as if they cannot take anymore. In English it looks just like a complaint, but in Hebrew, the sense of the complaint given is not of bitterness or rebellion, but of despair, of a worn out people. Most of them have been wandering in the desert their entire lives. This is not a people in rebellion, this is a people who need great encouragement.
Now remember, these people as a whole, have not seen the great miracles that God has done for the Hebrew people. They have not seen the ten plagues against Egypt. They did not cross the Red Sea on dry land. They have not stood at the foot of mount Sinai and heard the voice of God; They have not seen a great army defeated – they have not seen water come from a rock.
What they have seen is a hard life in the desert. Now granted, they have seen manna appear on the ground each morning…but for them it is not a miracle, to them it is normal life. Every time I place something in the microwave, I am astounded at the speed at which things heat up. But for a good many people today, a microwave oven, just always has been. They take it for granted. Sure the children of those who fled Egypt see the pillar of cloud guide them by day, and the pillar of fire guide them by night – but again those are things that have always been – so it is normal life for them. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Life is hard. These people need great encouragement. And you know what, God is going to give it them the encouragement they need. Again, I want to emphasize that when we look at the original Hebrew we see that the people are not just complaining, they are crying out in despair.
Now we see Moses and Aaron in the tent of meeting, verse 6 says they fell face down, this is a Hebrew way of saying that they are prostrate praying before God. It does not mean that there is a rebellion about to happen or that Moses and Aaron are overly worried.
So God plans to encourage the people. The staff that Moses is to take with him to the rock is not Moses’ own staff. God wants Moses to take the staff of Aaron which has been deposited in the tent of meeting for safe keeping. This is the staff of Aaron that had miraculously budded an almond flower. Though the majority of the people did not see this staff miraculously grow the almond bud, you know they all had heard of its existence. This staff of Aaron is kept in the tent of meeting. So when Moses walks out with this staff it is a sign of the power and authority of God.
Moses is to speak to the rock and water is to gush forth. The word used for rock, is really the word, rocky cliff, and it indicates that there is a very prominent cliff that everyone knows about. It would be a place that was large that everyone knew of, and knew for a fact that it was dry, and knew for a fact that it was solid rock – that could not contain water.
So Moses goes out and stands on the rock, so far so good. But then Moses calls them rebels. In verse 10, Moses words indicate that the people are not in despair, rather that they are in rebellion, but this is this is nothing of the sort. They are a people in need of encouragement – but Moses treats them as defiant. The root of this word rebel is always used to describe defiance against God.
What is going on here is that Moses says, “So you will defy God, must WE bring water out of this rock. Notice, Moses indicates that he somehow is responsible for the water about to gush forth. Then He strikes the rock, as if he had something to do with it.
Wait a moment.
This was all about God. This was all about God encouraging the people. This was about God going to show these people who had not really experienced his mighty power. This was about God showing how mighty and how awesome he was – then the people would have a faith that would not just take a step forward, but they would have a faith that would leap forward. They then would be very willing to follow God’s lead into the promise land. It was supposed to be about God. But Moses, he made the whole thing about himself.
So water does spring forth and the people are overjoyed….but they miss something – because Moses got in the way. They are robbed of the fear of the Lord. They are robbed of truly understanding how awesome and holy God is.
Look at verse 12 – here is the reason Moses cannot go into the promise land. This is a big deal. Moses has waited a long time, he is at least 120 years old here. Num. 20:12 “But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’”
What did Moses do that was so bad? First he did not trust God, second he did not honor God as holy in the sight of others.
You would think that after all these years Moses would trust God completely. But God knows our hearts, and here we see that Moses thinks that he is more than he is, that somehow the water will not spring forth from the rock without him
And what about Aaron. We have seen him in action before. He does nothing, he says nothing – which in effect is agreeing with Moses. We saw the same thing when his sister Miriam spread complaints about Moses.
See, we see in verse 10 that in some measure, through the words expressed and the actions taken claims that Moses and his brother Aaron have indicated they have the power to provide the water. Moses indicates it is within his power to make this happen.
So the effect here is that is not just God working…but God and Moses.
Moses refuses to rely solely on God, and becomes an impediment to others.
Kedesh the holy place become Meribah the place of contention
You and I. We can take events, times we deal with others, and opportunities to serve God…we can take these things that are about God, and we can make them about us. When we do, the power of God, the holiness of God is lost on the very people we are attempting to serve in the name of God. This, it turns out is a very big deal. This it turns out is something we need to be very careful of.
Years ago I worked in a large store with over 300 employees. Truly, there were only a handful of us who were Christians at this store. One of the few Christians was April. April was very open about her Christianity and would tell others about Christ at every opportunity.
April was moved to a different part of the store to work with a new manager in that area of the store, Matthew. Matthew was everything that April was morally against. He was brash, he was openly crude, openly rude and sexually all over the board and very much in April’s face about it. April was everything that Mathew hated, she was proper, she was moral, she was religious and April made darn sure Matthew knew that she was right and he was wrong.
It was all out war. These two people fought openly at every meeting. They accused each other of petty crimes, they pelted each other with insults. April repeatedly told Matthew he was “going to hell”, to which Matthew would always reply, “I’ll see you there honey”.
No one wanted to be around them. We were sure they both would be fired soon.
The comment I heard quite often was, “If April is anything like what a Christian should be, I don’t want anything to do with Christianity.” April had become Moses, what was a golden opportunity to live as a Christian she made about herself, she had made what should have been about God – about herself…..
Then, early one morning the phone rang at April’s home. It was Mathew, he needed to talk. April, wasn’t sure what to say, so she agreed top meet, sure this was some ploy to get her out of his area of the store.
Matthew had just received word that his mother had terminal cancer. April was the only person he could talk with, because, because, she somehow knew who God was. Matthew wanted to pray with April for his mother.
April told me that, that was the moment that the scales fell from her eyes. For months she thought that Matthew had been a curse to make her life miserable. She thought she had to fight this man tooth and nail. But in reality, God had placed Matthew in her life so that He could work in Matthew’s life. And here all along April, who was supposed to be an instrument of God, was just getting in the way.
You know, it was strange seeing April and Matthew get along. It was weird seeing them yuk it up – everyone noticed, we couldn’t help it. You know what everyone was saying around the store? They said, “Only an act of God could make this happen”.
Holy Moses, they were right.
