The book of Numbers teaches us about holiness. One of the best examples of holiness is the whole-hearted following of God shown by Caleb of Jephunneh. Caleb takes an expeditionary journey into the promised land with other representatives of the twelve tribes. Everyone else is intimidated by the size of the people there. Only two have enough confidence in the Lord to go in. One of them is Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ apprentice. The other is Caleb of Jephunneh. And here is what God says about Caleb: “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me whole-heartedly, I will bring into the land...” (14:24, emphasis mine)
What does it
mean to follow God whole-heartedly like Caleb?
It means to take a public stand of trust in God. It means to be courageous in standing
alone. It is hard to be the only one
standing strong. Moments like these
prove not only to God but to the other people that there is one present who
whole-heartedly follows the Lord.
We can also
learn what it means to be ‘whole-hearted’ by looking at its opposite. We can learn from the failures of others in
their half-hearted following. There are
a number of examples of this in Numbers:
1) Queasy Over Quail.
The Israelites grumble for food in chapter 11. What does God give them? He gives them way more quail than they could
ever want. The sin is not their hunger. Their punishment comes “because you have
rejected the Lord who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did
we ever leave Egypt?” (11:20) They have
scorned the favor God has shown them. In
the same way, we can scorn God’s deliverance by ignoring what he has done for
us and say “take us back to our old lives!”
This is half-hearted.
2) Aaron and Miriam – Seditious Siblings.
Moses’ family – his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam – question
whether God has actually called him.
They are angry at him for marrying a Cushite woman. Don’t buy it – that’s a red herring. The real issue is this: “…and they said, “Has
the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has
he not spoken through us also?” (12:2)
It is not a bad thing to be an ‘Aaron’ in God’s plan – it is a great
thing. It is not a bad thing to be a
‘Miriam’ in God’s plan – it is a great thing.
To compete with one another to be God’s mouthpiece – this is
half-hearted.
3) Ignorant Israelites.
After the spies’ bad report, the people rebel and they refuse to
go. Their punishment: to die out in the
wilderness. But now the Israelites
change their minds: “Here we are. We
will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.” Moses warns them: “Why do you continue to
transgress the command of the Lord? That
will not succeed. Do not go up, for the
Lord is not with you…” (14:40) They suffer disaster. This is half-repentance – they say they are
sorry, but they ignore all that God
has just said in verses 26-35.
Half-listening to God is not
enough. His grace is not cheap. It demands a changed life. This is half-repentance. It is half-hearted.
4) Tribes in Tumult.
The revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in chapter 16 brings the tribal
competition to crisis pitch. The twelve
tribes were made to worship God together.
Now the Reubenites and Levites have rebelled against Moses. Chapter 17 illustrates the moral of the
story. God has chosen Aaron’s family to
be priests. Everyone else has to be
content with that. Competing with others
for muscle, power, and leverage in God’s family is tragic. Rather than facing the Lord in the center of
the camp, they face each other in rebellion.
It is half-hearted.
5) Moses’ Mistake.
Even Moses fails in a critical moment.
Instead of his usual precision, to-the-letter obedience, Moses tries to
obey the ‘spirit’ of what God is saying.
This is not whole-hearted Caleb-style following. In his half-hearted devotion, Moses turns
away from God’s commandment. His
half-hearted devotion is an insult to the holiness of God: “But the Lord said
to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness
before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly
into the land that I have given them.” (20:12)
6) First Commandment Failure.
Moments like Moses’ failure at Meribah and Dathan and Korah’s idolatry
in the wilderness are memorialized so that the people would walk in the fear of
the Lord and not consider their own ways to be wise. But this all comes crashing down when the
Israelites commit idolatry and sexual immorality with Midianite women. It seems a compliment to even call this
half-hearted worship. Are their hearts
in it at all?
Imagine
walking with God and then rejecting him on the scale they have by Numbers
25. Phinehas the priest kills Zimri the
Simeonite, who has yoked himself to a Midianite woman. God applauds this killing. What are we to make of this? It is a difficult scene. There are many scenes in this book in which
the solution seems harsh. And yet the
same words will be there – whether this is your first reading of Numbers, or
your 25th.
And yet from
our end of history, we see that Israel’s pursuit of holiness has failed. Phinehas is not always there. The disease can’t just be cut out. Israel ultimately failed at holiness. But God’s mission – to put holiness in his
people – has not failed. Rather than
execute us, God allowed himself to be executed.
Rather than impale sinners, God allowed his own wrists to be impaled,
and pinned to a cross. The passage with
Phinehas reminds us that the quest for holiness is a whole-hearted affair. It tolerates no compromises. But thanks be to God that the cost for all
our half-hearted compromises have been born by God in Christ. His Spirit lives in us. He is whole-hearted. He is holy.
Because he is, we can be too.
I’ll write tomorrow on our third theme: on how
sin is atoned for in Numbers.
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