Word of Salvation – September 2013

 

Numbers 21 – VICTORIES OF FAITH

By Rev. John Westendorp

(Sermon 21 in a series on Numbers)

Scripture Reading: Numbers 21:1-3 & 21-35.

Singing: Book of Worship 236 / 72a / 135a (vss.1-6) / 330

 

Introd: We as parents often see ways in which our children are like us.

That was a common topic of discussion at some parenting seminars we had recently.
And on the home front Merle and I have been discussing that a lot too lately.
I also find others making that comparison when I’m back in the church where I grew up.
People will say: John, you’re looking more and more like your father.
Well… I generally take that as a compliment. Hey… he was good looking….!?!

Okay seriously… this happens often, doesn’t it?
We’re encouraged when we see some of our better qualities occurring in our children.
Or we’re horrified as we see some of our bad habits reproduced in them.
In some ways our children are the same as us… in other ways they are different.
Of course the good character traits always come from us… the bad ones from our spouse.

In some ways this is a major theme in the book of numbers.
Numbers is the story of two generations of the people of Israel.
One generation died in the wilderness as a result of their rebellion against God.
The other generation crossed the Jordan and went into the Promised Land.
And in Numbers 21 some things are different… while other things remain the same.

A] THE BOOKENDS OF ISRAEL’S VICTORY.

1. Numbers 21 pictures for us a new generation. The beginnings of that are in the previous chapter.

Numbers 20 has two bookends. Bookends of death.
That chapter began with the death of Miriam… it ended with the death of Aaron.
That says to us very clearly that the leaders don’t last forever. All leaders die.
So Numbers 20 pictured the dying out of the leadership of the previous generation.

What we now get here in Numbers 21 is another picture of a new generation of people.
The very last of the old generation is dying off in these final stages of the journey.

This chapter – Numbers 21 – also has, as it were, two bookends.
It begins with a battle victory and it ends with a battle victory.
In the opening verses the king of Arad and his people are defeated.
At the end of the chapter the Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, are defeated.
Those victories form the bookends of this chapter.

But there is something very telling about the first of these victories at the start of the chapter.
The place where it happens is called Hormah. That is hugely meaningful.
Turn back a moment to Numbers 14. It’s the scene of Israel’s rebellion against God.
The people listen to the ten spies who bring a bad report and they refuse to enter Canaan.
Then when God disciplines them they go up and fight anyway… but they go without God.
And then notice the result in Numbers 14:45.
It says: Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill country
came down and attacked them and beat them all the way… (to where?) …to Hormah.

The very place of their defeat forty years ago is now a place of victory. Why?

Because the generation of forty years ago acted in unbelief… this generation acts in faith.
Often we do something without God and we fail… we do the same with God and we succeed.
This is not only a new generation… this is a new generation with a new attitude.
In at least this one respect they were unlike their fathers and mothers: they were people of faith.
And their victory is a victory of faith. So Hormah is now a place of success… not defeat.

2. There is also a side issue in the bookends of this chapter.

Both of those events highlight the foolishness of war.
I can imagine the attitude of the king of Arad and his counsellors.
They were probably saying: “Here come the Israelites again for another hiding!
We thrashed them forty years ago, lets go do it again!”

What the king of Arad didn’t count on was that these were the same people only different.
Sure… they were Israelites… but they were now Israelites who looked to the Lord for help.
They prayed: If you will deliver these people into our hands we will totally destroy their cities.
God listened to them and handed these Canaanites over to them.
So the King of Arad… to his everlasting regret found himself fighting against God.

Sihon and Og didn’t take God into account either.
And again there is an underlying arrogance – especially in Sihon’s attack on Israel.
We’re told that Sihon had come down from somewhere up north and defeated Moab.
He had then taken a huge chunk of territory off the Moabite king.
Can you imagine him saying: “I defeated the powerful Moabites and took their territory.
These nomadic wanderers, Israel, are going to be a pushover.”

So often wars have seen huge setbacks – especially when done in arrogant defiance of God.
Okay… Hitler was successful – for a time. But he died in defeat.
And he brought devastation and ruin on his people.
So did the king of Arad… and so did Sihon and so did Og… they were terminated.
Their people were destroyed and Sihon and Og’s lands were taken over by Israel.

What these kings didn’t realise is that attacking God’s people is attacking God Himself.

And it’s encouraging for us to remember that God sides with His believing people.

Okay it works a little differently for us today. Christians don’t kill off those who attack them.
But this whole story of Israel is symbolic for us today… and in two ways.
Israel crossing the Jordan into that land flowing with milk and honey is a picture of our salvation.
But God’s judgment on these kings foreshadows the eternal death of God’s enemies and ours.

3. These lines that I’ve drawn from the O.T. to the N.T. are very clear.

The whole of the Bible God shows that He rewards faith… if not in this life then in the next.

God punished the unbelief of the previous generation… He rewards the faith of this generation.

For example: Israel were prevented from taking a short-cut to Canaan through Edom’s territory.
But now God’s grace is seen as the detour around Edom leads to blessing.
God gives the territory of Sihon and Og to Israel.

That doesn’t mean only the blessing of additional territory.
That was also God’s way of encouraging them.
The victory over these two kings was a foretaste of their victory in Canaan.
This territory east of Jordan is a guarantee… a deposit on all God will yet give them.

What a huge difference there was between these people and their parents.
Forty years ago… only unbelief – except on the part of Joshua and Caleb.
And the result was forty years of wilderness wanderings and death outside the Promised Land.
Now there is trust in God… faith in the Almighty maker of the universe.
And the result is three battle victories and extra territory for the nation.

So in what way are you like your parents? Are you similar or different?
If they were people who lived in unbelief then make sure you are different.
Live by faith in the finished work of Jesus and experience God’s hand of blessing in your life.

B] SIMULTANEOUSLY SINNER AND SAINT.

1. Of course God-given victories and successes don’t give us reason for cockiness.

That’s just when we find our spiritual life falling in a heap.
The Apostle Paul once said: Let him who thinks he stands take care lest he fall.
It’s all too easy to see our successes as something that we have achieved.
And then we take the credit instead of giving God the glory.
And then often God humbles us by letting us crash yet once again.

In a sense that is precisely what we have here in Numbers 21… in the part we didn’t read.
In verses 4 to 9 – right after that victory over the king of Arad we have another disaster.
So often in life the devil attacks us right after our moment of success. Here too.
So victory is followed by failure as Israel once again grumbles and complains.

However in between those bookends of victory we not only have grumbling we also have joy.
In verse 17 Israel celebrates as water flows from a well.
So in between those successes that begin and end the chapter we have both sin and song.
The sin is their grumbling, the song a celebration of God’s provision of water.

That makes us aware that this new generation is different… but they are also the same.
They are different in that they now face the battles of life with a faith attitude.
But they are the same as their parents in that they still fail at times.

That shows us another Biblical teaching that comes out here.
A Biblical teaching that Martin Luther rediscovered at the Reformation:
You as a believer in Christ are at the same time a sinner and a saint.
– You are a sinner in that you still battle imperfection in your life.
– You are a saint in that by faith God sees you as being righteous and holy.

So too here in Numbers 21 there is both the guilt of sin and the song of faith.

They have the successes of faith but they also fail once more as they grumble.

2. The sin is obvious and painful. They grumble about the Manna that God provides morning by morning.

Same old boring food day by day.
And that leads to God then sending poisonous snakes that bit the people and many died.

Faith does not make us instantly perfect.
Okay… there are Christians who teach perfectionism… or “complete sanctification”.
They say you can actually get to the point where you don’t sin for a whole week or month.
But that doesn’t square with Scripture… nor does it square with our experience.
We will all struggle with sin and imperfection until we die.

So there is a sense in which these kids… this new generation… looked just like their parents.
And every child looks like its parents at this point: they all carry the same sin gene.

Here it’s beautiful how God responds to those fatal snake bites with a special means of salvation.
Moses makes that bronze snake on a pole. And as people looked at it they recovered.
It’s a wonderful O.T. picture that foreshadows the saving work of Jesus.

All that these people with snakebite had to do was just focus totally on that bronze snake.
All we need to do to be saved is to focus totally on Jesus as the only remedy for sin.
God didn’t save them by putting something inside them… an injection of antivenin.
They had to look outward and upward… away from themselves to that pole with that snake on it.
And we – for our deliverance look away from ourselves… outward and upward to Jesus.
As Moses lifted up the snake for these people God has lifted up Jesus on the cross to save us.

3. These people are both sinners and saints. Just as you are both a sinner and saint.

So the positives are also there in this chapter. We’ve already seen that in their new attitude of faith.

But it’s also there in the verses in between those victories that we focus on today.

There is not only sin… there is also the song.

In verses10-20 we have a very brief description of the last part of their wilderness journey.
It refers to some more places they passed through as they travelled.
Some fairly meaningless place names are mentioned that have kept the experts guessing.
And a book is mentioned that we no longer have access to.

Maybe that’s all done deliberately to show that this was just another part of that long journey.
The forty year trip to Canaan isn’t quite over yet.
And the details are not all that important… but they did travel and they did make progress.

And then right in the middle of all of that we find God leading them to a well of water.
And what do the people do? They sing a song of celebration.
And that highlights the other side of who these people are.
They are sinners… but they are also saints who rejoice in the God they trust.
There is also joy in the Lord at the wonder of His gracious provisions.

Perhaps the order of events too is deliberate and significant.
These people had experienced again God’s saving love.
Many could probably still see the puncture marks of the snake bites in their arms or legs.
But they had looked at the bronze snake on the pole and had repented of their grumbling.
And so when God blesses them yet again they burst out into a song of praise.

The believer is at the same time sinner and saint.
But the saint in us rejoices when we’ve again experienced the goodness of God.
As saints let’s keep expressing our faith in song… let’s celebrate God’s goodness.

C] THE DEEPER ISSUE – GOD’S JUSTICE.

1. Today there is one important matter in this chapter that I feel I must touch on.

I want to come back to that opening bookend… that victory over the king of Arad.

Because for many people there’s a sour note there that detracts from the joy and delight of the victory.

We read in verse 2 that Israel promises to totally destroy their cities.
And in verse 3 we read that when God gives them victory they carry out their promise.
The cities of these Canaanites are completely destroyed.

So we have this very positive chapter with three victories and a celebration song.
And even the grumbling leads to that lovely symbol of salvation: the snake on the pole.
However there’s that sour note of the total destruction of the Canaanite cities.

We find that same thing on a bigger scale in the book of Joshua.
When Israel enters Canaan under Joshua’s leadership he does that to all Canaanite cities.
They are ‘devoted to destruction’.
So we get this troublesome picture in the O.T. of ethnic cleansing.
Here and later in Joshua Israel adopts a “scorched earth” policy.
Those Canaanite cities are totally obliterated.

We know that this was not a normal part of Israel’s conquests later on at the time of David.
But it was here… and the troubling thing is that it was so ordered by God.
Listen to these words from Deuteronomy 9:3 – You will drive them out and annihilate them.
Israel defeated the King of Arad not just for gain but for the destruction of Canaanite culture.

2. Various attempts have been made to justify God – because this is not just Israel’s decision.

How can God not only approve of ethnic cleansing but actually order Israel to do it?

I recall visiting some friends some years ago.
The mealtime devotion was of one of these stories of total destruction.
I don’t recall whether it was this particular chapter or a similar story from Joshua.
But I will always remember what my host said afterwards.
He said: Jesus would not have agreed with that.

Some people feel that we’ve somehow got to justify God’s actions for Him.
So there’s this view that this is O.T. stuff and the N.T. has moved on from that.
Or worse: that the God of the N.T. has come a long way from the God of the O.T.
We have problems with a God who not only endorses this but who demands it.

Great to have this story of a new generation that has a new attitude.
Lovely… a new generation that walks obediently with God by faith.
But that new generation has got some dirty work to do… and that begins here in Numbers 21.
And the dirty work they have to do is to annihilate the Canaanites.
And they have to do that – if you please – on God’s behalf.
So how do we deal with this sour note in Numbers 21?

3. We’ll only understand why God orders this ethnic cleansing if we understand two things.

First – we need to appreciate who God is.
God is a holy and righteous God who cannot condone sin in any form.
But He particularly judges the more outrageous sins in dramatic and radical ways.

Second we need to understand who the Canaanites were.
They had some horrendous practices. Part of their religious rituals included child sacrifice.
That was an abomination to God who did not want his people learning those rituals.

It’s telling that God already spoke to Abraham four hundred years earlier about the sin of Canaanites.
He explains in Genesis 15:16 that Israel will be four hundred years in Egypt.
Only after that they will come back to Canaan and then God significantly adds:
For the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

In these situations God deals in judgment not only with individuals but also with nations.
The Incas also practiced child sacrifice… and God dealt with them thru the Conquistadors.
The problem is that we live in a society that doesn’t see God’s holiness… nor man’s evil.
I recall a National Geographic magazine that featured an article on the Incas.
It had a picture of skeletal remains of a victim of child sacrifice.
And it commented on how wonderfully peaceful it looked in death.
But there was no mention of the horrors it meant for the victims and their families.

Today there are people who admire the Incas and their practices.
But who would dob you in to the authorities if they saw you smacking your child.
In contrast God condemns the gross sins of the Canaanites and He judges them for it.

We don’t need to defend God. Or pretend that Jesus would not have approved of Numbers 21:3.

In fact God even used the tragedy of these kings as a great testimony to His power.
Later Rahab in Jericho tells the spies: The whole land has heard what you did to these kings.

Here is yet another way in which Numbers 21 features as a picture of the gospel.
God not only provides salvation in the form of one who was lifted up for us to look to in faith.
God also judges severely all those who refuse to live by His standards.
You have a choice: Go your own way like the Canaanites… and perish.
Or look to cross of Jesus and find there complete and full salvation. Amen.

Written by Rev. John Westendorp