Would You Intercede??

"But Moses said to the Lord, "Then the Egyptians will hear..." Numbers 14:13

Would You Intercede...Again?!
By Rev. William Dohle

If God took you aside and told you he was going to destroy America but save you and your family...what would you do??

Would you go along with God's plan? (After all, he is God after all!)
Would you negotiate with God? (Come on, God, do I have to bring ALL my family?)
Or... perhaps... just perhaps now...
Would you argue with God to save the whole lot of them??

And if God came to you a second time? Would you do the same? Would you have the guts to stand up to God if God made the same offer again? Or as many times as God offered it to you?

That's what happened to Moses...in the middle of the desert in fact!  The people of Israel have complained one too many times and God is sick of it! God offers Moses a way out. God will destroy the people and raise up Moses as a new nation.

God's already made the offer once. The first time was at Sinai when the people made the Golden Calf and began worshiping it instead of God. There God's anger rained down upon them...but Moses intervened.

Now in the wilderness, the same thing happens. Here God appears in front of the tent of meeting and tells Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they."(Num. 14:11-12)

Now what would you say to that?  Yes?  Go ahead, God? Maybe I was wrong to save them on the Mountain, God? Let's talk details, God, about this nation you're going to make of me?

I know many Christians in our world who would shake the dust off their feet, wash their hands of the whole mess, and say, "Go for it, God! I've been waiting for you to intervene like this for awhile!" Maybe not the first time God offers, but certainly the second time. I admit, I too have been tempted to wash my hands of the mess of the community of faith before. When people fight, when arguments arise, and when we wonder where God is in the messiness of life, then we too may want to give up.

But Moses doesn't. Moses, the righteous man of God, shows us what righteous men and women do. What do the righteous do? They stand up for the people, even against God himself! Even when the people are complaining against you and abusing you, Moses still stands up for them. Moses does it in two ways. First...he appeals to God's self-image.

"Now if you kill this people all at one time, then the nations who have heard about you will say, 'It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness."(Num. 14:15)

What is Moses saying here? "What will they say about you in Egypt? What kind of God are you showing yourself to be?" In other words, Moses is appealing to who God wants to be. But who is that, you ask? Who is God? Well... Moses needs to remind God here of who God is too.

"And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, 'The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression...Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt until now.'"(Num. 14:18-19)

Reminding God of who God is, Moses appeals to the promises God has made. Promises on which he and the people stand. These promises tell them that God is not a God of wrath and anger, a God who strikes out at people for no good reason, but this God is a God who forgives, who is slow to anger and has steadfast love and faithfulness. This God is ready to relinquish in punishing. This God is good!

If we believe in this God, if we truly believe that God is this good, than we are not compelled to do the same? Are we not compelled to appeal to God on our people's behalf and intercede for them?

In our world today, we are polarized. Republicans against Democrats against Libertarians against Catholics against Protestants against Muslims against Jews against Palestinians against...ahh! The list goes on and on. Jump on Facebook sometime and read how many polarizing shares you get. People so desperately want us to agree with them too. "Share if you love Jesus..."... "Like if you think like I do..."..."Share and Like if you hate Obama!" Many of these posts and much of the media that is produced, isn't loving or forgiving the other side. It is mean and bitter and cruel, especially to those we disagree with.

What if we took a cue from Moses here? Instead of condemning the world, why not intercede on its behalf? God is good and gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love...and everything he promises to be. Shouldn't we, God's followers, be the same?

God of life, give us boldness to stand up, even to you, just as Moses did, for your people. Give us hearts of grace that we may give ourselves this way, even as Jesus did for us. Amen.

Can We Do...anything?

Wadi Kadesh...this is where the people would have camped.

Do not go up, for the Lord is not with you; do not let yourselves be struck down before your enemies."  Number 14:42

Can We Do...Anything?
By Rev. William Dohle

Is there anything you CAN'T do??

I remember in high school, on occasion, we were summoned to the auditorium and there, in front of everyone who came to the assembly, a speaker would come at us with words of motivation.

"There isn't anything you can't do..." they'd say.
"If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything..."

Such speakers were often quoted at graduation time.  "The world is ours!" our valedictorian said.  "All we have to do is claim it!"

As an adult, there are other motivational speakers who seem just as wise as they were in high school.  Like Pastor Joel Osteen who declares in one of his sermons, "...if you're going to tap into that hidden treasure you've gotta go where you haven't been before."

But are they right?  Is there really no limit to what you can do if you put your mind to it? 

The people of Israel struggled with this very question in the book of Numbers.  Here, at the Jordan river, they faced a choice... to believe Joshua and Caleb's report and enter into the promised land confident in God's presence or to believe the other spies who discouraged them.  A hard choice to be sure.  One way promised them temporal safety.  The other promised risk...and reward.  Which way would the people choose?

The people chose to believe...the other spies, mocking Joshua and Caleb for their report.  God couldn't do that!  Why would God have brought them into the wilderness to die!  Then they had the nerve to complain about what God had done to get them there in the first place.

What gall, huh?

So... God tells them what will happen.  "As I live, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: your dead bodies shall fall in this very wilderness; and of all your number, included in the census, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, not one of you shall come into the land in which I swore to settle you..."(Num 14:28-30)

Is this harsh?  Or punishing?  Is God being too mean?

No...not really.  You see, just previously, the people had said that God would leave them in the desert to die.  What God is doing is fulfilling their own prophecy.

"Fine...you want to die in the wilderness?  Be my guest!  I'm in no hurry.  I'll fulfill my promises to your children instead."

You see God knows what the motivational speakers are hinting at.  In some cases, we decide.  We decide what will happen to us.  In our minds, we erupt some crazy scheme or plot or plan.  We prophecy to ourselves...and then make that prophecy happen.

That's what the people did.  They said God would leave them...and God left them.  They said they'd be defeated by the Canaanites and, guess what?  They were defeated by them!  God left them to their own devices.  God let their self-fulfilling prophecies, fulfill themselves.

That's why Moses tells them, "Do not go up, for the Lord is not with you!"

And the other reason Moses says "No"?  Moses says, "because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you."

Once again, consequences follow our actions.  BECAUSE you have not listened to God, God isn't listening to you.

So...can we really do anything if we put our minds to it?

I admit, I believe our positive attitude does help our lives.  In my life, I have found self-fulfilling prophecy to be a scary thing.  God used it to drive me to become the pastor I am today.  Seeds of my ministry were sown back when I was in grade school at Vacation Bible School.  God used self-fulfilling prophecy to bring me to this congregation and to a city that I've always dreamed about.  "I wish I could live in a place..." became reality with God.

Our attitudes can also harm us too.  "They're going to get mad..." I've thought or said...and I've learned those thoughts can actually sour the mood between you and someone else.  Thinking "They're probably not going to like this..." doesn't help you get a good response out of people.

Staying positive and believing can help you in any situation.  But we can't really "do anything."

No amount of positive thinking is going to change your spouse...or cure your cancer...or make you immortal and invincible.  I can think I can fly all I like and believe it in my heart, but that doesn't mean it will be true!

And following God and staying positive doesn't mean bad things aren't going to happen to you either.  It doesn't mean you'll always triumph and succeed with this formula.  Even Moses, with his unshakable faith, didn't live to see the promises of God fulfilled.

Instead in every and any situation we must trust.  Trust that God has our back, our front, and is along side us too.  Trust in God's promises.  Stay positive...and then let life come!  Life might be rough before we die, but we have a God who doesn't leave us behind, but instead calls us forward into the future whatever that future might bring.

Blessed are you, Lord God, king of the universe, for you have called us to follow and obey, to trust, hope, and live in your promises of grace.  Give us confidence and boldness that, even when faced with crazy decisions, we may stand out as people of faith, confident in you.  Amen.