Faith…
I was watching a programme last night on the Paramount comedy channel. It was a stand up show with a bunch of comedians doing their bits for a short period, it’s on quite often (maybe even daily?) and I quite enjoy it… for the most part the comedians are very funny and not overly crude, with the occasional exception.
But this one guy got up and started with how he liked to read and how recently he’d been reading the Bible, he went on to say how it was quite a good book full of great stories etc and went on to talk about Moses. He made some pretty funny jokes about stuff Moses had done etc, not overly irreverant or anything. Actually, if the Israelites had been anything like our youth club events would probably have been very like he was describing when Moses lead them for 40 years through the Sinai desert…
Anyways then he got to the part where Moses finally found the promised land….. but wasn’t allowed in. Now he didn’t really know why, which was clear enough from his joking. But I also found myself wondering why. I knew he hadn’t been allowed in, and I knew he had done something that had caused God to not allow him to enter the promised land, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what that event was.
So I looked it up.
My nice big study bible, aside from being weighty enough to beat even the most stubborn heathen into fearful submission, also has a lot of very useful crossreferences and so on in the margins and footnotes. And with it’s help I was able to find out what verse 51 of Deuteronomy 32 is referring to in saying “This is because you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites”…
The reference is to Numbers 20 verses 11-13. The point where Moses struck a rock with his staff and water came out…
Now in my mind the water from a rock thing is a pretty major miracle that must have required a lot of faith to pull off… Right? so how had Moses broken faith in this miracle?
Well first of all The Israelites had no faith in God or Moses saying that they would have been better off dying than being in the desert that God had led them into. They had forgotten that their wanderings were as a result of their parents and their own sin and were instead placing the blame on Moses and, worse, on God. But Moses wasn’ t taking part in this distrust and faithlessness, in fact he was the one who went to God for an answer rather than cursing and complaining… So how did Moses break faith with God?
Well firstly, God told him to simply speak to the rock and water would flow from it, and Moses struck it with his staff. Big deal? well yes actually, not only was it disobedience to God, which is always a big deal, but I remember recently seeing a sciency programme that was talking about possible excuses for how miracles took place. I don’t actually remember much about any other miracles, but I do remember the man talking about a porous rock that would actually store water inside and if broken open or cracked the water would come out. Now if you were an Israelite wandering in the desert for quite a while, you may well have come across this and the miracle of water from a rock when someone whacked it may not seem such a big deal to you, but had it come without the whacking, then it would have been a big deal. But that might be reading too much into the situation!
More important than some geeky science guy’s tv show possibly watering down the awesomeness was that Moses took credit for the miracle rather than affording the credit to God. This was a major issue. God had granted Moses the power and ability to do something and Moses had not given the due credit back to God. This is ultimately the reason why Moses spent 40 years in the desert leading the Israelited and had spent many years of sweat before that in Egypt preparing them to leave and getting them out and away from Pharoah under God’s power and guidance, and then wasn’t allowed to see or enjoy the results in his lifetime.
Now when I compare Moses to myself, and I see how Moses lived and accredited almost everything to God barring this one little incident with a fairly minor miracle in comparison to parting the Red Sea, turning the Nile to blood etc etc etc and how God came down on him when his pride and self importance kept it’s kudos for himself. Then I look at the gifts God has given me, and I consider how many times I have taken praise without pointing it to God, how many times I have taken all of the kudos for me. God has given me gifts and abilities and every one of those times that I use them for my own glory I am breaking faith with him.
I don’t even deserve to see tomorrow let alone a promised land!
It’s high time I start pointing glory back to God and not keeping it for myself.
