by Maylan Schurch
©2019 by Maylan Schurch
(To hear the audio for this sermon, click the little “play” triangle on the line below.)
Please open your Bibles to Numbers chapter 11.
Once you’ve turned to Numbers 11, take a glance at your bulletin. If you’re one of those people who already has the bulletin fully studied by the time the sermon starts, you will have noticed a lavender insert. It’s the one called “Bible Sidekicks – Joshua.” What I’ve done with that insert is to summarize all the sermon points up to now.
(If you’re reading this online, you’ll find these points discussed in detail in the two previous sermons in this series. Go to the home page, click “Worship” at the top, and then “Sermons.”)
For the last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about Moses’ sidekick or assistant Joshua, and this insert gives the three basic qualities we’ve discovered in Joshua to this point. These are qualities I believe you and I need today.
I created that insert so we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time reviewing the two previous sermons on Joshua, and we can get right into today’s final sermon. In the insert I provide instructions to find these sermons on our church website. They are both in printed and audio versions there.
I think Joshua’s sidekick qualities are so important for us to study, because as I mentioned last week, Moses was training Joshua to become the leader once Moses had died, and Joshua would be the one to shepherd the people into the Promised Land of Canaan.
And Bible prophecy tells us that we are very close to the coming of Jesus. If He returns soon enough, you and I will be alive to see it. And if we are not alive, and if we’ve turned our lives over to the Lord and accepted His gift of salvation, we will be resurrected to see His return. And as God’s representatives in our homes and our communities, we need to ask God to put Joshua’s qualities within us so that we can have an influence for Jesus in the lives of those we know.
This past Wednesday night at prayer meeting, we heard a couple of thrilling stories of people who whom the Lord gave opportunities to share their faith with. Jesus mentioned that we all need to be lights in the world, the salt of the earth, making a visible and you might say taste-able difference for Him. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8)
Numbers 11 is not the Bible’s happiest chapter. It has a lot of drama and tension in it. But it will also teach us another important lesson Joshua learned.
This is going to be another one of those chapters where the Israelites, whom God is leading through the wilderness on the way to the Promise Land, are going to start complaining again. You and I sometimes look at these people with real puzzlement. How could these people, who had experienced so much, seen so much, heard the voice of God speak from a mountain, and had seen His presence in a vertical column of cloud, both day and night – how could these people complain?
Part of the reason is because when the Israelites left Egypt, Exodus 12:38 says that it wasn’t just Israelites. It says that as they left, a “mixed multitude” went with them. If you’re using the New International Version this morning, or the English Standard Version, or the New Revised Standard Version, you see that in place of “mixed multitude” these newer versions use the word “rabble.”
Let’s step into the story and see what’s happening.
Numbers 11:4 – 9 [NKJV]: Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!” Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.
This is an interesting dilemma, isn’t it? After all, didn’t God create the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic? I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a leek, but they have them in the QFC about a mile south of here. To me they just look like giant green onions. And yet this “mixed multitude,” or “rabble,” have seized on food as their latest excuse to get themselves discontented, and get the Israelites discontented.
So on the one hand you have what must’ve made a pretty good stirfry, compared with the manna. The word “manna,” by the way, is literally the Hebrew word for “What is it?” That’s what they called it, because they didn’t know what it was. But since it was food miraculously provided by God for this wilderness experience, it must’ve contained the highest quality nutrition.
So, here we have another crisis. The rabble have complained, and their discontent has spread to the Israelites, and people actually burst into tears. And watch what happens here. In some of those rebellion crises, it’s God who gets fed up. This time it’s Moses who has had it up to here with the people he is leading. Moses is about to talk turkey to God.
Verses 11 – 15: Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was greatly aroused; Moses also was displeased. So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,’ to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now—if I have found favor in Your sight—and do not let me see my wretchedness!”
So Moses is really low at this point, right? Is it okay with God that His servant expresses this deep discouragement? It certainly is. I mentioned last week that we need to give God permission to get really emotional about people He loves. And God Himself gives us permission to get emotional too.
And God listens to us. He quickly picks up on the fact that Moses is under too heavy a burden. So God does something practical in response.
But where’s Joshua in all this? He’s probably an intensely interested observer. He can’t hear God speak to Moses, from what we know, but Joshua is interested in how all this is going to turn out.
As I say, God now does something very practical.
Verses 16 – 17: So the LORD said to Moses: “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone.
And I can imagine that Moses’ shoulders start to relax. After all, he’s going to be the one who gets to choose the 70 community leaders, and that’s perfect. He knows these people, and he knows which ones will be a great help.
So watch what happens. And here’s where Joshua comes back into the picture.
Verses 24 – 27: So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD, and he gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. Then the LORD came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. But two men had remained in the camp: the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out to the tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
Now we’re going to watch Joshua’s response. Remember, as we’ve learned in the last couple of sermons, Joshua was definitely a part of God’s “woodwork.” He was faithful and present when he was needed.
Also, Joshua was a “rememberer.” Joshua kept the memories of God’s mighty power large and vivid in his mind, and nothing could dislodge them. No fear or worry could ever loom larger than Joshua’s memories of God’s acts. So as Joshua heard the people weeping and wailing about the limited desert cuisine, he was probably rolling his eyes and wondering what all the fuss was about. Because at this point, if the people behaved themselves, they would be in the Promised Land in just a few months.
And remember that Joshua was hungry for God’s presence. And he probably couldn’t understand why everybody else wasn’t just as hungry for this. Instead, they seem to be more focused on food.
Let’s lay down another sermon point right here. Not only was Joshua part of God’s woodwork, not only was he a rememberer, and not only was he hungry for God’s presence, but here’s another “Bible sidekick” quality Joshua had.
Joshua wasn’t rattled by the rabble.
(By the way, Shelley helped me phrase that point that way. I don’t remember the way I originally put that point, but mine was more boring.)
Let’s take a closer look at who this rabble, this mixed multitude, were. They were definitely people who didn’t “get it” about God’s purposes and plans. They were unbalanced pleasure-seekers. They were people who complained without thinking things through first. They were probably the type of people who, if something popped into their mind, they just blurted it out rather than thinking about the effect their words might have on anybody listening to them.
What about today? Are there “rabble” people in our lives? Are there people whose attitudes can affect a whole workplace, or a whole schoolroom, or whole church? Of course there are. After I finished my sophomore year in school, my parents enrolled me in a home study course so that I could work full time during my junior and senior years.
I worked at a milk processing plant, and I was the youngest employee there. I quickly learned how attitudes could spread from worker to worker, and it was really tough not to get caught up in these attitudes. As a young first-time worker, I discovered that what an employee was supposed to do was to hate the boss, to assume that the boss was just exploiting us. And that attitude simmered under the surface, even though our boss wasn’t like that.
Later, when I worked a full-time night shift for a state institution north of town, some of the employees wanted to unionize. So they put out a little newsletter filled with all sorts of rumors and false ideas about the supervisors and other people in leadership. The bosses were the bad guys, we workers were the good guys, so let’s get the union going so we can have some power.
So we have to make sure we’re not rattled by the rabble. How can we do this? We need to go back to our Bibles again and again, and make sure that we know what is God’s plan for us, right now. For Joshua, God’s plan was to get the nation safely and healthily through a wilderness to a promised land, in just a few months. That was the main thing to think about. Even though God created stirfry vegetables, His plan was to nourish His people during those wilderness months with an amazing heavenly food. That was God’s plan, and for the people to whine and complain about it was not only distrustful and wrong, but it was extremely dangerous.
So as we go to work, or go to school, or go anywhere where other people are, we need to have firmly in our minds what God’s plan is. What is God’s plan? God’s plan is for us to not be led around by other people like sheep. Instead, God’s plan is for us to talk like Him, act like Him, love like Him–and, when possible, guide people closer to Him. This is often a slow process, and it’s got to be a careful one. And we should not become distracted from it.
Well, back to our Numbers 11 story. Again, let’s keep our eyes on Joshua. Joshua has watched as those 70 community leaders were chosen. He has watched them start to gather out by Moses’ tent. He has watched them being given the temporary prophetic gift, giving evidence that the Holy Spirit is with them.
But then comes word that there are only 68 people at Moses’ tent, and two have remained back in the camp. Yet they are prophesying, back there. And to Joshua, this is a problem. These guys should have come out to Moses’ tent the way they were told to.
Verse 28: So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, “Moses my lord, forbid them!”
And you can imagine Moses chuckling, and walking over and clapping a hand on Joshua’s shoulder.
Verse 29: Then Moses said to him, “Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!”
So here comes another extremely important lesson Joshua must learn. You could call this Sermon Point Five.
Joshua was zealous, but he had to learn to let God be God.
What do I mean by that? Well, it’s good to be zealous, but it’s even better to be humble. A surprising amount of famous Bible people let their zeal convince them that they knew better than God – that they had better ideas than God.
Gideon was zealous to drive the Midianites out of the land, but when God started drastically trimming down the Israelite fighting force, this was very disturbing to Gideon. However, Gideon soon learned to let God be God. With God, 300 men holding trumpets and torches can defeat an army of thousands.
The Pharisee Saul was zealous – but he made a wrong assumption. Saul believed that the Nazareth woodworker Jesus could not possibly be the Messiah, and Saul zealously believed that this idea was so dangerous that he needed to stamp it out by force. But Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and proved to him that it’s best to let God be God.
And here in the desert, Joshua thought he knew the Lord’s agenda. Joshua thought that only people who had gathered near the tabernacle could experience the Holy Spirit. And when he urged Moses to forbid the two “outlier” prophets, he was actually in danger of becoming a persecutor like Saul.
But he had to learn to let God be God. God probably sent the Holy Spirit upon Community Leaders Number 69 and 70 back there in the camp in order to show the people that God could guide the leaders even when they were not near the tabernacle. And this knowledge itself would probably solve a lot of problems when it came to authority.
But now let’s take a look at another event, one in which Joshua was zealous, and that zeal was aimed in the right direction. Turn to Numbers chapter 14. I believe that in this story he combines all those “sidekick” leadership qualities we been talking about. Let’s watch what happens.
As Numbers 14 begins, we find a whole lot of people weeping again. This time they’re not weeping because they’re backed up against the Red Sea and the Egyptian army is rumbling toward them. They’re not weeping because of the lack of Egyptian stirfry vegetables.
This time they’re weeping in terror because eight out of 10 of the scouts which were sent to check out the Promised Land have brought back a discouraging report. In fact, let’s go back to the last part of Numbers 13 and pick up the story from there. Caleb, Joshua’s faithful co-scout, is doing his best to keep the people’s courage up.
Numbers 13:30 – 33: Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
And that’s when the sobbing begins. If these people had been so faithful to God that they were part of his “woodwork,” if they had been accurate rememberers, if they had been constantly hungry for God’s presence, and if they had continually let God be God rather than trying to write His agenda for Him–if the people had done this, they would have had the same attitude as Caleb and Joshua, everybody would have been over the border in a week.
What’s so dangerous about this situation is that these scouts bringing back these reports were not the mixed multitude, the rabble. These were Israelites – probably leaders with nearly the same prominence as Joshua and Caleb. These men had credibility. And this means that the people who listened to them were forced to evaluate what they were saying against the commands and promises of God. God said, “I have brought you here. Go forward into this land, and I will make it yours. No matter what anyone says to you – even if it is leaders among you – believe Me. I will sustain you.”
And, of course, Joshua and Caleb had a choice. They could have said, “Well, I guess the majority rules. We’re outnumbered 8 to 2. We gave it our best shot, but it looks like we lost this one.”
But these two men realize that here is where they need to stand firm. There is too much at stake. So watch what happens next.
Numbers 14:1 – 9: So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.” Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: “The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.”
Well, it’s no use. This is the point at which the Lord sends this whole nation back into the wilderness to wander from place to place for 40 more years. And the Lord tells us why. He says He’s doing this so that everybody who is over 20 years old at this point will eventually die off, and the people 20 and under – plus Caleb and Joshua – will be the ones to go into the promised land.
And that’s what happened. Four decades later, an aging Caleb and Joshua did pass over Jordan, with Joshua in the leadership role, but nobody else who’d been over 20 during the rebellion was present. It’s very chilling to think about, but God evidently realized that these rebel-prone people would be too dangerous to let loose into this new land.
And the same thing is true of heaven. God will only allow into heaven people who are safe to have there. If you and I want to enter the Heavenly Promised Land, we need to thoughtfully study the life of Joshua and other Bible people like him. Like him, we need to be part of the faithful “woodwork” in God’s house. We need to be rememberers of his mighty acts. We need to not be rattled by the rabble. We need to hunger for his presence. We need to be zealous – but ultimately to let God be God.
It’s a tall order, but with the Holy Spirit, it is very possible. Over in Numbers 27:18, when Joshua was officially ordained as a leader to replace Moses, God said of Joshua that the spirit of the Lord dwelt in the him. And we need to allow that same Spirit to enter our hearts day after day.
Would you like to do this? Would you like to raise your hand and indicate that you want God’s Holy Spirit in your heart?