Refugee: The Downfall of History’s Second Greatest Leader

June 16, 2017
Pastor Frank Bowden

Sermon Notes

I want you to think back, and I want you to remember a really awkward, I mean a painfully uncomfortable moment you had to witness. It’s the kind of moment that was so awkward and so uncomfortable, it just left you wanting to disappear from the room. You had nothing to do with it; You were just a spectator. Maybe it was at a family get-together, like a Thanksgiving dinner or a family picnic or a barbecue, and someone says something to Aunt Sally or to Cousin Joe, and they lose their mind; They fly off the handle, and it leaves you just sitting there thinking, “Oh my goodness!” You’re speechless, and the only thing you want to do in that moment is find the nearest hole and go crawl into it and hide, because it’s that uncomfortable. Or maybe you’re at a Little League ball game, and you’re watching one of your students from school, or maybe you’re watching a niece or nephew play ball, and you sit in the stands and the umpire makes a bad call. It happens every once in a while, right? The next thing you know, you see a dad jump out of the stands, run onto the field, kick dirt on the umpire’s feet, throw the first base into the outfield and knock a kid’s hat off on his way off the field. –that kind of moment. Can you get that moment in your mind? -where something was just so uncomfortable, you think, “I can’t watch, but I don’t want to look away.”

[surveillance video shown]

You know what they say, right?  If you don’t know that person at work or your family get-together or within your social network of people, you are that person…Alright, all kidding aside, we’ve all had a moment when we’ve had enough of what life has to serve us, and we’ve lost it in front of our or wife or in front of our kids. We snapped in front of our colleagues at work, or maybe your epic downfall happened in Walmart in front of total strangers, and it costs us something every time this happens. Maybe it’s just a knock on your reputation or your credibility. Sometimes it costs a little bit more. It might cost you your job. Then there’s that moment when you lose it so bad that it costs you everything.

That’s where we are today. When we read from the Bible today in Numbers, chapter 20, it’s that moment. For the past several weeks, we’ve been studying leadership through the life of Moses. What can we learn about the second greatest leader history brought us? Today is a painful and uncomfortable lesson when Moses loses it, and we have to witness the downfall of God’s number one guy, and it cost him dearly.

1. Don’t Allow Circumstances to Distract You From God’s Faithfulness

Today there are some things that we want to learn. We want to see some lessons as we build toward Moses’ downfall. Here’s the first lesson that we see today in Numbers, chapter 20:  Don’t allow circumstances to distract you from God’s faithfulness.

I get that this is easier said than done. I get that, but God has to be the filter through which we see our circumstances. We can’t let our circumstances be the filter through which we see God. Israel got this backwards a lot. Today, we see Moses get this backwards. Folks, you and I today, we can’t get this backwards, so let’s set the scene of what’s happening around Moses and the people of Israel just before his epic meltdown.

In Numbers, chapter 20, we’ll start in verse 1.

Numbers 20:1-5
1 And the people of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there. 2 Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. 3 And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! 4 Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? 5 And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.”

The start of the story sounds pretty familiar, right? ‘same old, same old. -Israel gathering the people together, an angry mob getting ready to attack Moses yet again for how he’s leading them, and their perception of lack of provision on this journey. If you’re here for the first time, then you’re probably wondering, “What’s going on? Why is everybody so angry? I kind of feel like I’ve come into the middle of something here.” We’ll take a second to tell you what’s been going on to get us to this point today.

Israel’s been on this amazing journey to a land that God has promised them, a promise that he made with Abraham long, long ago. And this land was good. This was Garden of Eden-like good, and 38 years earlier, in this same spot at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, Israel gets a glimpse into this land’s goodness. A few weeks back, we talked about this scene where they sent some spies into this land on a recon mission to gather some intel to see if this land really was as good as God said it was, and it lived up to the hype.

But 10 of these spies also brought back a bad report. They said. “Moses, the people there who are in this land are big, and they are strong, and they are mightier than we are. There is no way we can defeat them. Moses, the cities there are well-fortified, and I don’t see any way that we can defeat their armies with their cities the way that they are. In fact, Moses, you know what? It’s not even worth it. It’s best for us to go back to Egypt, Moses. Take us back to Egypt, and let us be slaves there.”

Because of their unbelief and because of their rebellion, the people of Israel had been wandering around in the desert for the last 40 years, basically going nowhere until that older generation has died off. And here we are, fast forward to a new generation at the same spot, and I believe the circumstances here at Kadesh happened  on purpose. I think it is by design. I think it’s a test. God’s trying to see, “Will this new generation of Israel act like their fathers before them? Will they act like this previous generation? Or will they actually trust in the Lord to provide all their needs and to provide for them as He has provided for them on this journey? If this is a test, that I think verse 2 gives us an answer as to how it’s going, and it’s not going too well. Look back at your Bibles, verse 2.

When they arrived at Kadesh, it says there was no water for the people, and this is interesting, because Kadesh is a place where it is not uncommon for there to be water. It is known for its water oasis there, so it’s kind of interesting that when they got there, all the springs were dried up. But for whatever reason, it was, and they did not like that, and they assembled the congregation. They gathered together all the people against Moses and against Aaron, and if you read verse 3, it says, “and they quarreled with Moses.”

That word “quarrel” there being used in the Bible is the legal term for a lawsuit. Basically, what the people are doing, is they were taking Moses and Aaron up on charges. They are taking them up on negligence charges. This isn’t just a case of “We don’t like the accommodations, or things really aren’t that great; They could be better, and we want to file a complaint.” This is serious. When we look at the language here of how they summon the congregation and how they quarrel… When we put all those words together, this is basically the uprising of a mutiny. They would agree to take up arms against Moses and against Aaron. This was about to get violent. And they tell Moses, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord. Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness that we should die here?”

Listen to what they said next, starting in verse 5: “Why have you made us come out of Egypt to bring us to this (and listen to their words as they tried to describe the promise of God) evil place? It’s no place for grains or figs here- They’ve seen these things come from this land. Yet, their current perception is that it is no place for grains or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there’s no water to drink. Listen to what they just said. In their minds, it would have been better for them to die with those the Lord judged during Korah’s revolt than for them to live. That’s an outrageous statement! Could you imagine being Moses in this moment and hearing them say something like that? Instead of thanking God for sparing them, they’re acting as if God has done some kind of an injustice to them for allowing them to live. This is crazy to hear Israel saying to Moses, “If we have to live, we prefer to be slaves back in Egypt. Just take us there. If this waterless stretch of sand that you brought us to is this Promised Land that we’ve heard about for so long, Moses, we don’t want anything to do with this. Just take us back to be slaves.”

You and I know this. We know that difficulties will either bring out the best in people or the worst in people, and this is an honest glimpse inside the true heart of Israel. -that even though God has provided for them every step of the way with everything they could possibly need, their heart is really saying and their actions are really saying here, they refuse to believe that God is good, and their anger is telling us today that they refuse to believe that He is faithful to His promise, and here they are back at Kadesh repeating the same old complaints that they heard their parents say. ‘The same old things. -complaining over a lack of water, instead of trusting in God for their needs. It’s like they did not learn anything from this. ‘Talk about anger here, and how the anger of the people of Israel is roused up and is projected onto Moses and onto Aaron.

Benjamin Franklin said this about anger: He said, “Anger is never without a reason, just seldom with a good one.” And then there’s an old Arab proverb that says, “Anger is the wind that blows out the lamp of the mind.” You and I don’t think rationally when we’re angry. Israel here clearly was not thinking rationally. -if you’re paying attention to what they’re saying about this Promised Land, how it’s an evil place and there’s no room for it to have all the abundance that God said that it would have. So clearly, they’re not thinking right when they’re saying these things, and their anger is clouding their judgment.

When you and I allow circumstances to boil our spirit to the point that we snap and we unload on others, oftentimes the root of our problem is that we’re really just angry at God. We’re really just mad at Him for the way things are going, but we pretend as though it’s not Him that were mad at, because deep down inside our souls, we know just how foolish it is to shake our fists at God, and yet we do so passively by shaking our fists at those who are around us. We’ll lash out onto our spouse or onto our children. Or we will lash out at our coworkers or onto our friends, because they let us down. Really, our anger is rarely caused by their failure, just by the inconvenience that those things might bring to us. When we look at our anger and our emotions and we project them on to others like that, it’s really just an unspoken frustration with God’s providence, really. We’re really saying, “God, if you’re so in control of everything, if you’re as in control as you say you are, then why is everyone around me so incompetent? And our emotions and our anger are really just an immediate response to circumstances that don’t favor us. I get that it’s hard to always keep the big picture in mind, right? And it’s hard to always remember that God is still at work, even when everything around us seems to be coming unglued.

But it is in those moments when everything around us is actually coming unglued and falling apart around us that we have to fall back on and we have to cling to these twin truths in our lives: that God is sovereign and that God is merciful. To put this in childlike terms at the dinner table: that God is great and that God is good. When we remember God’s faithfulness and we remember God as promise- keeper and not just promise-maker, we’ll find life’s a whole lot easier to manage and navigate, even when the hurt and the nastiness of life come our way.

God knew exactly what problems Israel was going face in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. He knew that none of this caught Him by surprise, and He was ready and willing and able to provide for their needs, and He did over and over and over again. And God knew exactly the problems and the frustrations that the people of Israel were going to cause Moses as he was leading them on this journey.

2. God’s Goodness Is Always At Work

We’ll see the next verses that God is the answer to the problems that you and I are facing today. There is no problem, no circumstance, no issue that is too big or too great for our Jesus to manage. What we’ll see is that His goodness is always at work. We’ll see how this plays out in the next few verses. Let’s start in verse six as we learn this next lesson as we build toward this downfall of Moses: that the goodness of God is always at work.

Numbers 20:6-8
6 Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, 7 and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 8 “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.”

Moses and Aaron knew just exactly how thin this ice Israel was skating on was. They have seen God’s response to their behavior like this before when they rejected the land and tried to replace Moses as leader or when Korah with his followers tried to steal the priesthood from Aaron. So they prepared themselves for the worst, and I can imagine Aaron and Moses with their faces pressed into the dirt out in front of the Tent of Meeting. This was a sacred spot, a holy spot, where God often revealed Himself, and I can imagine them waiting there face-down to the ground thinking, “Oh man, when God speaks, this is not going to be good. When God speaks, this time it is going to be bad. This is going to be really bad. Moses, He might throw down lightning bolts this time. I don’t know, Aaron, He might cause the Earth to open back up, and He might just wipe out the rest of them. This is not going to be good.”

It is a punishment or a formula that we would expect, right? God judging their unbelief is what we’ve seen over and over again, but this isn’t what we read in the text. Notice what God says first in verse six. Notice what He does first. He reminds Moses and confirms His presence with Moses, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. “Moses, as I told you before, so I’ll tell you again: I’m with you. Always, I’m with you.”

We see this echo throughout Scripture for us. We see this in Deuteronomy. We see this in Joshua and in Psalms and Proverbs. We see this show up in Matthew and Hebrews, and in Revelation.- that God never abandons us. He never leaves us.

It doesn’t mean that we’re immune to the hurt that life can bring. It just means that we have a hope now that can see us through it. And to show that to Moses and to the people of Israel, God answers their plea and answers their cries, not with wrath or with judgment (though He could have, and He would’ve been justified in doing so), but instead, He chose to answer with severe grace. And He instructed Moses to take the staff.

There’s some kind of debate as to which staff Moses was to take up. Was that his staff? Was at his rod that had been used by God to do miracles in Egypt or to split the Red Sea? Was it that staff? Was it Aaron’s staff the Lord used to bud and blossom and produce almonds as a way of divinely affirming his priestly authority over Israel? Regardless of whose staff it was at this moment, that’s not for debate today.

Here’s what the staff pictured for the people of Israel. Here’s what it represented for them (two things): One, it showed Moses and reminded Aaron and all the people who saw Moses hold it up before them of all the many times and all the many ways that God fulfilled His promises, how God showed Himself to be faithful, and how He showed Himself to be good through all the miracles that He had done.

It also did something else with the people of Israel: It confirmed the authority that Moses had from God as one that they should listen to. And even in the rebellion and in their complaining, God remained faithful and His goodness continued to provide for their needs. He said, “Moses, this is what I want to do for them. I want to do what I did for their parents with this rock, but I’m going to do things a little differently. In fact, I’m going to make this an even greater miracle. Moses, take the rod. Moses, gather all the people together and this time, just speak to the rock. Just speak to it, and in that way, I’m going to show everyone just how good I really am. ‘No need to strike it like you did before. Just speak and the waters will come out. ‘Talk about how God is good, how God is great.

We hear that statement a lot. In March 2015, there was a Swedish football team that was trying to get back home to Stockholm. They were doing a week’s worth of training and practicing in Spain, and they show up at the airport early Tuesday morning (this is March 24), and they basically have four flights to choose from. They’re all going to the same destination. They’re all leaving at about the same time. The pretty much all fly the same route north over the Alps to Germany, connecting flight to Switzerland, connecting flight to Sweden, and the team director chose to spread the team out over three of the flights, because the fourth flight, German Wings flight 4U9525, though it was a little bit cheaper and it could’ve handled the entire team in one flight, it had a 10-hour layover in Dusseldorf. And the director said, “You know what? That 10-hour layovers is not worth it, being cheaper and more convenient for all of us to fly at the same time. It’s going take us much longer to get home. We’ll just spread the team out, and we’ll just take these other three flights, and that’s what they did.

And if you remember the news from March 24, 2015, you remember that German Wings flight 4U9525 was hijacked by the co-pilot about an hour after takeoff and intentionally crashed into the Alps, killing all 150 people on board. And when the team director landed in Munich, he checked his phone, and he had some 200 missed calls from friends and family wondering, “Were you on that plane? -because you were supposed to be on that plane. Will you please answer your phone? Call us. Let us know that you’re okay.” In an interview, he is a quoted saying this, “You could say that we were very lucky. You could say it was destiny.”

‘See, when we hear stories like that, we oftentimes will almost always hear someone say, “Wow! isn’t God good that they changed flights?” And we all watch the news. When we read reports of someone avoiding some sort of doom with no real explanation, you’ll hear that phrase tossed around. You know, like when dad’s going to work, and his truck breaks down. It makes him late, and because he was late, he avoided this massive pile-up on the interstate that he would’ve otherwise been in. Some will say, “Man, wasn’t God good?” Or when a mom goes to the doctor to get treated for pneumonia and while they’re running x-rays and tests, they find a tumor on her lung, and she’s able to be cured from that, because of an accidental discovery, and some will say, “Wow! Isn’t God good?”

Well, the answer that question is absolutely yes. God is good, but the better question to ask is: Why is He good? -because for every story we find of people escaping death like that or escaping some sort of disaster with no real explanation, there’s a host of other stories of people who weren’t so lucky, right?  What about the folks who took the interstate that morning, because they thought a different route to work would be faster for them? ‘So they took the interstate instead, and they got caught up in that pile-up. Is God still good to them? The Bible doesn’t say that God does good things, the Bible says that God is good. It’s not just what He does, it’s who He is, and He never changes.

When we read Psalm 46, we read this: “God is our refuge and our strength. He is a present help in times of trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.” When Charles Spurgeon was writing his commentary on this particular Psalm (Psalm 46), he wrote that God is good, not because He causes things that seem to feel good to happen in our lives, but He’s good, because in the midst of the storm, God comes closer to us than the storm could ever be.

This is why we can say that God’s goodness is always at work. No matter the pain, no matter the hurt that we’re experiencing, no matter how different the outcome is from what you prayed, God is good, and He doesn’t change. He doesn’t falter, and He doesn’t leave. ‘See, God is just as good to the 150 people who went down on that German Wings flight as He is that football team who changed flights, and God is just as good to the parents of obedient children as He is to parents who are struggling with the child in rebellion. God is just as good to those people who have lost their jobs during corporate cutbacks as He is to those who got a promotion, and God is just as good to the wife who desperately wants a baby and can’t have one as He is to the wife who has had many. Church, what I’m saying is: God’s goodness is not dependent on an outcome. Don’t allow your circumstances to distract you from God’s faithfulness. Don’t allow your circumstances and what may be going on in your life to blind you from the constant, continual goodness of God.

3. We Lose When We Battle God For His Glory

‘See, Moses forgot those two things today. And now we see what happens when His anger is aroused and his judgment becomes clouded and he begins the battle got for God’s glory. This is what happens when you and I battle God for His glory: He wins. And there was no contest to it to begin with. We built to this moment where Moses is about to have his epic collapse, and let’s see what happens when he cracks.

Numbers 20:9-13
9 And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him. 10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. 12 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” 13 These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.

Moses was human just like us, and no doubt he was growing sick and tired of all the complaining and bickering and backbiting that he was experiencing from them and all the unfaithfulness that they were doing. And it isn’t hard to believe that the people provoke Moses to anger. In fact, when we read Psalm 106, verses 32 and 33, that Psalm tells the effect that they had on Moses’ spirit. So yeah, they provoke him to anger for sure.

But let’s not forget how the story began too. The story began with the death of his sister, Miriam. And maybe Moses was a bit extra vulnerable today because of the death of his sister, and this time, when the people complain and they brought their frustration before him, he didn’t want to speak to God on their behalf and petition God on their behalf. This time, he just wanted God to give them what he thought they deserved. “God, just go ahead and judge them. I don’t care today.” But that’s not what God wanted to do. Instead, God wanted to show His grace. Regardless of these factors involved, the fact remains that Moses didn’t honor the Lord. He didn’t keep his commands. He didn’t do as the Lord said.

God told Moses to speak to the rock, and instead, he lashes out at the people. He says, “Hey, you rebels!” While this may be true, ‘not a place for name-calling at this point, because he’s not doing this in a righteous manner. He’s not doing this in a way that is righteous. He’s doing this just of his own self-pity. This is kind of when the train started to go off the rails, but then the next statement he makes is the one that he can’t recover from.

This next statement when the train completely derails is when he says, “Shall we bring water for you out of this rock? (we being me and my brother, Aaron). Shall we do this?” Then, he struck the rock not once like he did before, but twice as he unleashed his anger and his frustration. What Moses just did damaged severely this intimate relationship he had with God for so long. Really, what Moses did was, he just described miraculous powers to himself and to Aaron not much different than the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian magicians did.

 In fact, Moses put himself before God and acted as God both as judge and provider, and not just for this moment, but when we look at what Moses is really saying, he basically just took credit for the whole 40 years-worth of provision. He’s basically taken the credit for all of that and think of the hurt that this caused God.

“Moses I’ve given you more of me than I’ve given anyone else. Moses, I’ve held nothing back from you, but Moses, you can’t have this. Moses you can’t have my glory.” Even in spite of Moses’ sin, we still see the mercy and the grace of God evident here. ‘Because water still came out of the rock, and it was still sufficient for the people and their livestock, and Moses was still used as an agent in this miracle, even though his actions and his words were completely wrong in this.

But the downfall of his character here was so critical, he would suffer severely for what he’s done. That one thing that Moses has been working toward, that one prize that he has been leading the people of Israel to, the one thing he probably wanted more than them, now he wasn’t going to be able to have.

We read in verse 12, “Because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people, you’re not going to bring the assembly into this Promise Land. Moses, you’re not going to do it. You have to stay out.” It wasn’t so much striking the rock that was the sin. That’s the outward manifestation. Really what Moses and Aaron were guilty of is they glorified themselves instead of glorifying God.

God’s looking down on those saying, “Moses you really glorified yourself instead of glorifying me. Moses, I should strike you dead for that, the way that I did Aaron’s sons, because they did the exact same thing.” That’s how severe what Moses just did was. And instead, God says, “I want to show you the same grace as I’ve shown Israel over and over again, but Moses, you won’t see the fullness of my promise, Moses. You won’t get to lead them into the Promised Land, and this devastated Moses. If you read the rest of this chapter, Moses begs and pleads, “God, would you please let me go in? Please let me go. God, I’m sorry.”

This grieved Moses, but it was too late for that. God said no. So, what’s the leader to do, right? What’s a leader to do after he has his epic downfall, and there’s still work to be done and there’s still leading to be done? -because the journey is not over for the people of Israel, but Moses now realizes the journey’s over for him. He’s not going to be able to go in. What’s a leader to do? Does he continue the mission at hand, or does he just jump ship and get on with his life? ‘Because he knows he’s not going to be able to go into this Promise Land. You’ve got to come back next week to hear how a leader responds after failure and what a leader does after he fails, because God is not done with Moses yet.

But ‘you know what makes the story really, really sad to me? This what makes a story heartbreaking to me: that Moses defaced a beautiful picture of Jesus. Moses defaces a beautiful picture of the redemptive work of the rock which provided water in the wilderness. And the New Testament talks about this and makes it really clear in 1Corinthians, chapter 10, that this rock, this water providing, life-giving rock was a picture of Jesus, and Jesus being struck once provided life to all who would drink of Him. Jesus says this of Himself and John, chapter 7, verse 37, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and He cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink.’”

‘See, it was unnecessary and was unrighteous that Jesus would be struck again, much less twice, because the Son of God, Hebrews 10 tells us, had to only suffer once and for all for the sins of many. He only had the suffer once. There is no need for Moses to strike the rock again. All we need to do now is in faith, come to Him, speak, just as Moses should have, using only words of faith to bring this life-giving water to the people of Israel. And Moses ruined this picture of the work of Jesus that God intended. As we read how this scene ends, at the end of it all, God is still seen as holy. Moses did what he did. He didn’t steal God’s glory, as God gets his glory. Moses might not have hallowed God in this incident, but God hallowed Himself through how he corrected Moses, and one thing we learn from this is that God will get His glory, and God will be honored. The question for you and I today is: Will that come from our obedience, or will God get His glory and His honor through our correction? Those are the only two choices that we have here.

Next Steps

• I want a relationship with Jesus that starts today and lasts forever. I confess Jesus as Savior and Lord for the first time.

– I’ve allowed _____ to take God’s spot as number 1 in my life. Pray for me to surrender that to King Jesus.

+ I will boldly share about God’s goodness to someone in need this week.

Discussion Questions

1. What do you find yourself most often complaining about?
2. What complaints or criticisms did the people of Israel have?
3. Were the complaints against Moses or God? What does our complaining reveal about where our trust and hope lies?
4. What sin did Moses commit?
5. How can you explain God’s punishment of Moses as an act of mercy? Look up Leviticus 10:1-3 to see what God did to Aaron’s sons when they committed the same sin.
6. What circumstance is challenging your faith most right now?
7. Pray for God to strengthen your spirit to remain faithful to Him this week.