Closer To Heaven
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This video is produced by the South Pacific Division Discipleship team.
Week 2_Restless & Rebellious_study this lesson for July 10 from SPD Discipleship on Vimeo.
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You can view an in-depth discussion of “Restless and Rebellious” in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view:
With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.
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Reality is 90% perception, or so they say. I don’t know who comes up with these statistics, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
When I was in sales, I led my district one year, but I also went through a three-week drought with no sales at all. So what was my reality? Was I a good salesman who had a bad drought, or was I a bad salesman who just happened to get lucky?
Since the dynamics of a family are so different between firstborn, middle and youngest child, counting in gender difference, two siblings may be growing up in two different families, according to their perceptions. Each child perceives and experiences the family differently to the extent that as far as perception goes, it’s not even the same family. You and I can watch the same football game, but if I am watching behind the goal, and you are sitting on the sideline near the center, we are going to have a totally different experience and perception of the same game.
Satan well knows how perception affects our picture of reality. So he likes to play little mind games. A while back during a Bible study, I mentioned that sometimes I am tempted to think that I care more about people than they care about me. My Bible student quickly responded, “Me too!” Then he paused, scratched his chin, and added, “I bet Satan tries to make everyone feel that way.” I agreed with my Bible student.
Image © Rolf Jansson from GoodSalt.com
Let’s look at how Satan played mind games with the Israelites. Look at how they perceived themselves after spying out the Promised Land which had already been … well, promised to them!
All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” Numbers 13:32-33 NLT.
Wait a minute? First of all, historians say the Canaanites may have been a few inches taller than the Israelites, but not so much taller as to be called giants. The grasshopper comparison was a drastic exaggeration. Furthermore, how did they know the Canaanites thought they were like grasshoppers? How would they know what they were thinking at all? They didn’t! They projected their perception on the Canaanites and thought their perception was reality. But it was all in their minds. Satan was playing mind games with them.
Later, in Joshua 2:24 another group of Israeli spies visit Rahab in Jericho and there they found out what the reality was.
“The Lord has given us the whole land,” they said, “for all the people in the land are terrified of us.” Joshua 2:24 NLT
So the grasshopper comparison was just a little mind game of Satan that the first spies bought into. It was not reality. Sure, God wants us to be humble, but that does not mean he wants us to think we are grasshoppers while everyone else is a giant. Those who walk humbly with God are a terror to those who stand in their own pride and arrogance. If you walk humbly with God, you do not need to be intimidated by anyone, regardless of their title or the letters behind their name.
Humble men, armed with the word of truth alone, withstood the attacks of men of learning, who, with surprise and anger, found their eloquent sophistry powerless against the simple, straightforward reasoning of men who were versed in the Scriptures rather than in the subtleties of the schools. –Ellen White, Great Controversy, Page 455.
So it is today as in every age. The same can be said for you today, which was said of John the Baptist.
He could stand erect and fearless in the presence of earthly monarchs, because he had bowed low before the King of kings. –Ellen White, Desire of Ages, page 103.
Wisdom and humility go beautifully together, while the common combination of arrogance and ignorance seems to be lacking in comeliness. While we do not want to be arrogant and ignorant, it is possible to be humble and confident. Our confidence should be in God and not in ourselves.
Are you facing a giant today? First humble yourself before God. Put your confidence in His love and power. Walk forward in humble faith and obedience, and your giants will turn into grasshoppers. The humble of the land can also be the confident of the land, not cowards.
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Throughout history, God’s people have been roaming in the wilderness as they seek the Promised Land. This wilderness has many faces. Right now, it looks like an endless media barrage, the constant beeps of incoming messages, and the deep roar of interminable entertainment. It tries to sell us pornography as love and materialism as the answer to our problems. If we just could be a bit fitter, a bit younger, a bit more affluent, a bit sexier — that would take care of all our problems.
Like the Israelites, we are restless in our search for peace, and so often we look for it in the wrong places.
Image © Jeff Preston at Goodsalt.com
Israel’s reaction to the divine judgment is typical. “We have sinned,” they said. “We will go up to the place which the LORD has promised” (Numbers 14:40).
Half-hearted commitment is like a poorly administered vaccination — it doesn’t work. Today, doctors recommend a Hepatitis B vaccination right after birth within the first 24 hours of life. That’s a good beginning. However, following that first shot, if there are not two or three booster vaccinations administered at the right time and in the right doses, then there is no protection against Hepatitis B whatsoever.
Israel’s rebellious turnaround, reported in the last verses of Numbers 14, results in death and disappointment as the Israelites now refuse to accept God’s new directions and stubbornly launch an attack without the ark of the covenant or Moses’ leadership.
Presumption is costly; presumption leads to death. Very often, presumption is powered by fear. Because we are afraid of something, we make decisions that we later regret.
| Think about a time you acted on faith and a time you acted on presumption. What was the crucial difference? |
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God is offering to destroy the Israelites and make a whole new nation with Moses as the father of them all.
Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com
This is the moment that we can see the true man of God. Moses’ answer, frozen into time, anticipates the Intercessor who, more than 1,400 years later, would pray for His disciples in their afflictions (John 17). Indeed, in what Moses did here, many theologians and Bible students have seen an example of what Christ does for us. Their guilt, our guilt, is not even questioned. And yet, Moses pleads, saying, “according to the greatness of Your mercy” (Numbers 14:19), please forgive these people. And just as the Lord did then because of Moses’ intercession, thus He does for us because of Jesus, because of His death and resurrection and intercession for us.
Thus, Moses pleads: “Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now” (Numbers 14:19). Grace combats rebellion and restlessness at its core. Forgiveness offers new beginnings.
Yet there are costs. Grace can never be cheap. Though forgiven, the people will face the consequences of their rebellions, and that generation will not enter into the promised land (Numbers 14:20-23).
Yes, God will sustain them for another 38 years in the wilderness. He will feed them. He will speak to them from the sanctuary. He will be at their side in the wilderness. But then they will die, and a new generation will have to pick up the baton and find rest in the Promised Land.
It sounds like judgment; yet, it really is grace. How would this generation be able to conquer Canaan’s powerful city-states if they had not yet learned to trust Him? How would they be a light to the nations when they themselves were stumbling in the darkness?
| What hard lessons have you learned about the consequences of forgiven sin? |
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