Years ago I came across a verse that said, “…and there is grace in the wilderness,” and I just about died. I’ve heard people say, “You know, I am in the wilderness. What a horrible place to be.” Well, there are many times when we are in the wilderness that God can really use us. It was Philip in the book of Acts, who was called out of an evangelistic journey in Samaria to go into the desert to minister to an Ethiopian eunuch. The Bible says that he arose and went in obedience. He wasn’t in the desert kicking the cans and being mad at God for sending him there; he did what God wanted him to do. He went out of obedience to the Ethiopian man and led him to Christ. That Ethiopian man, in turn, went back to Africa and led the Continent to Christ. So we realize that this event was more important than just a little tiny revival. When we find ourselves living in the wilderness, that’s where God can make us and that’s where God can groom us. And even for David, a powerful king and sweet psalmist, so much of his life was in the wilderness when he was running from Saul. But, in that wilderness, he brought forth the songs that we love so much—the Psalms. So before we begin to get bummed out and want to quit, we ought to really understand that God spoke to the Israelites while they were in their wilderness; God fed them manna in the wilderness; God gave them a cloud to guide them by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them.
Even their shoes didn’t wear out. The Shekinah glory (God’s divine presence) was there. So they had everything, and yet, the people did not come to really know God. Moses tried, but the people didn’t.
Here’s an important question to ask ourselves: Do we wait on God? Some of the marriages we see that are troubled is because the man and woman did not wait on God. They went ahead and got married anyway. Now God can take it and make it and use it for His glory, but there is a lot of pain involved. It is best to wait on God. In the book of Numbers 9:8, “Moses said to them, stand still and I will hear what the Lord will command concerning you.” Here is a guy who is not going to make a decision. He is not going to be pressured into doing something. So many times in our lives, we have been pressured into doing things, and those have been the worst decisions of our entire lives. It’s okay to step back and say, “I don’t know what God wants.”
There’s a story in the book of Leviticus, chapter 24, that says that a man, accused of killing another man, was brought to Moses, and the people asked him what they should do. The law indicated that he should be killed. But Moses responded with, “I don’t know. God has not revealed this to me, so throw him in jail.” The man was put in jail, but the next day, Moses said to bring him out. So they brought him out and Moses said, “Kill him.” So basically, God told Moses exactly what happened and it was okay to go ahead. But here is the important point: Moses did not move until he gave God a chance to get involved in his life. Now if we were to do that, we wouldn’t yell at our kids, threaten a divorce, or do all those things that can destroy marriages and relationships. We wouldn’t yell at our bosses or do things that can get us fired. We would wait and give God an opportunity to work.
David said the very same thing in Psalm 27:14, “Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!” Now we can just read that as is or we can take a few moments and ponder it. The Bible is saying that when we wait on God, God is going to make us be of good courage. Wait on the Lord and be of good courage. And so if we wait, our hearts are going to be encouraged. It goes on to say, “He shall strengthen your heart.” He is going to strengthen our hearts. “Wait, I say…” So in the waiting, it’s not just waiting, God will strengthen our hearts and God will give us encouragement.
In the book of Isaiah there are two great passages: Isaiah 30:18, “And therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you…” In other words, why does God hold back? He is holding back so that He might give us more, and that we will be exalted in due season. And then Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait on the Lord, shall renew their strength and they shall mount up with wings of eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.” If we wait on God, we are going to be renewed. God is going to give us strength. So here is what we have to come to grips with—waiting is not doing anything; it is preparing our hearts. And as we are obedient to God, God is going to bless that moment of our waiting. If we would only stop, God could really do a great thing. God could speak to us, or show us how He could do some great things. We are going to do the impossible. We are going to mount up with the wings of eagles and fly. We are going to run and not get tired. And we are going to be able to walk and not faint.
This is my favorite: Peter was told by Jesus in the book of Acts to wait in Jerusalem until the baptism of the Holy Spirit came, but what did Peter do? John 21:3 says that he went fishing. He wasn’t going to wait. And what did the other disciples do? They went with him. And so, what does the Bible say? They caught nothing; they did not catch any fish. If we are out of God’s will, how can we catch anything? But when we are in God’s will, we’re going to catch all kinds of fish. When Jesus appeared, He told them to cast the net on the other side of the boat. And now they were not able to pull in the net because of the multitude of fish.
Numbers 9:1-5 says, “Now the LORD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying…” By now, they had been here by this mountain for two years. Two weeks earlier they had fashioned and worshipped the golden calf, so God had just forgiven them. “Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time. According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it.” So Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover. And they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, at twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.
Here are four things to consider. First, sometimes we get bummed out. Why do we get bummed? We know what God wants. But we have constantly messed up; we have sinned. Lord, You’ve warned us many times and still we are not able to keep from falling. Notice in the above few verses, God wanted Israel to keep the Passover observances even though they had messed up so poorly. Four times, He stressed for them to keep it. In the same way, God is asking us to keep our relationship with Him, even though we have sinned and missed the mark. But we make the excuses for why we can’t. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons that come up. This often happens when we are backsliding. We want to come back to God, but we feel like we can’t. We feel like what we have done is horrendous. We feel like the things that we have accomplished in our lives have destroyed any possibility of God using us or loving us in a very powerful way. How absolutely wrong we would be. God wants to love us and God wants to extend His grace to us. The Bible says, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD…” (Isaiah 1:18) In other words, God is willing to talk with us and just share what is going on. The Bible also declares that all the years that the swarming locust has eaten up, God will restore. (Joel 2:25) So, think about it…all the years that we have messed up, God is willing to make it right. The crooked areas in our lives are going to be made straight. Those bumpy areas are going to be smooth. And the hills and the valleys are going to be filled up. The way back to God is a highway.
“Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. And those men said to him, ‘We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the LORD at its appointed time among the children of Israel?’ And Moses said to them, ‘Stand still, that I may hear what the LORD will command concerning you.’ ” (Numbers 9:6–8) Here in verses 6-8, they are crying out, “Not only did we miss it, we’re bummed, but we are unfit.” Notice the incredible confession to God. So the second thing to consider is that sometimes we might feel as if we are unfit; we have become defiled.
If a person is willing to talk about their weaknesses, we know that God is performing a healing in their lives. If a person is willing to approach leadership and asks, “Can I get involved?” “Can you help me?” then God has already started them on their way back to Him. If we are listening to the Word of God, but we feel guilty, we need to remember…God brought us; God wants to speak to us and God wants to heal us, and God wants to restore us in a very powerful way.
Verse 7 above says, “And those men said to him, “We became defiled by a human corpse…” Those men were not only saying that they were here, but that they were defiled. They’re not going to lie. They’re confessing before God. It goes on to say, “Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the LORD at its appointed time among the children of Israel?” In other words, “Are you going to deny us the opportunity to go in and see God? Are you going to tell us that we cannot worship God? We are confessing to you that we missed it and we are telling you that we are not clean. But we didn’t do it on purpose—something came up. Something happened. Someone died.” We may have our own reasons for missing it. For example, maybe my wife died and I got bitter with God and walked away, or maybe something happened to my kids. Someone molested my child in Sunday school or church and I am just angry at God. I’m always sick and have contracted cancer and I’m just mad at God.” God understands that. He is not saying that you have no heart for God. But then Satan tries to deceive us by saying, “You are not worthy. You don’t belong here. How can you get mad at the God who loves you?”
The men wanted to make an offering; they wanted to sacrifice; they wanted to meet God, and they wanted to go in. “Moses, are you telling us that God will not see us?” Moses answered, “That is a good question.” So Moses went in and talked to God. “God, there are a group of people out here that want to worship You, but they are defiled. And by the way, they want to meet You and hang out with You and do all this stuff, but they kind of feel left out because of their defilement. And now they have to wait a whole year before the next Passover and they are just bummed. They’re going to feel guilty and think that You don’t really care about them.” And God says, “Come here, Moses.” And this is where it gets exciting.
So, 1) not only are we bummed and 2) we are unfit, but now, 3) we’re blessed out of our minds. Notice verses 9-13, “ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the LORD’s Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. ’” Does that mean that God is going to give us a second chance just like what He gave to Israel?” “Yes.” “Does that mean that we can worship God?” “Yes, right now.” Satan is lying to us when he says that we are no good; we don’t deserve to be used by God; and that we have blown it. So for years, we have been holding back, not getting involved in any ministry because of what happened at another church or what we did or how we have lost the family or how things did not work out. We are told that we need to just sit back and do nothing for the kingdom of God. That is not true. We need to come into fellowship; we need to be blessed by God, we need to let God love us and we need to start all over again, because God wants to heal us and God wants to change our lives right now. That is the most incredible thing. God is willing to give us a second chance, but we have to confess and we have to declare that we are unclean. And we have to have a heart for God. We have thirty days to do it, so don’t mess around, don’t procrastinate, and don’t talk about it. But these “defiled”men were serious. They weren’t talking about things, they were saying, we want to worship.
Verse 12 says, “ They shall leave none of it until morning…” In other words, do exactly what the first Passover did—eat everything. “…nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.” Verse 13, “But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the LORD at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.” And that is perfectly fair. If God is going to give us thirty days, we deserve to be left behind if we’re going to mess around with it by watching TV, going to a baseball game and not get serious. If we come and talk to God, then we can work this thing out; we can reason together. Not only will God touch us, but we can touch God. God can restore us; and like David, God can use us. He can once again use us to teach transgressors the way and we can save marriages and save businesses, because we have gone through bankruptcy, or we had a divorce, so we can be used for the kingdom of God. But don’t sit there and say that God doesn’t care about us and God doesn’t love us and the Old Testament is full of God’s wrath. It’s not. It’s full of the goodness of God and the graciousness of God. When we look at that type of a God, we begin to realize that God is absolutely incredible.
And finally, verse 14 with the fourth consideration, “And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the LORD’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.” What God is saying is that all the strangers need to come to Him. God is telling Moses to tell every stranger that has come out of Egypt that if they keep the ordinance, keep the covenant with God, then they can have fellowship with Him too.” This opened up a brand new thing which Moses began to realize. It opened, not God’s eyes because He already knew what was going to go on, but it opened to us a side of God that we don’t always hear about. God loves us, and God died for us, and God has given us everything. How much more will He forgive us and do a work in our hearts? But if we are here today and we’re still backsliding and we’re still questioning God, and living the old fleshly way for many more years, then what we really ought to be saying is that we love darkness more than we love light. God has given us a way out. God can restore us and God can heal marriages, and heal businesses, and God can do a work that is unbelievable if we just give Him a chance. But we have to respond.
