13: Trust or Consequences

[00:00] Stephanie: Season 2, episode 13. Today we’re heading into the wilderness.

Hello, Father.

[00:06] Marcus: Hello, Daughter. Into the wilderness we go.

[00:09] Stephanie: Oh, wait, haven’t we already been there? Well, yeah, okay, but we’re packing up boot camp. More on that in a moment. For now, an icebreaker. I think you are actually the one who proposed this icebreaker. What skill or hobby would you like to have picked up when you were younger?

[00:27] Marcus: Ah, yes. Well, I’ve usually answered that with carpentry. That would have been nice to learn a little bit more about how to actually make things. I think partly because my dad used to make a piece of furniture every Christmas for my mom. I was always kind of drawn to that, but I never learned that skill.

[00:49] Stephanie: Yeah, that would be a fun skill. I would like that. I think we talked about woodworking in a recent episode so, yeah, it checks. I could go so many different ways with this. My brain goes to gardening. I would also love woodworking stuff. When I think about skills when I was young, I think about how many of my friends were in team sports. I did a lot of hodgy podgy things. My favorite that I stuck with was taekwondo, but that was more of a singular thing.

[01:26] Marcus:  A lot of broken boards.

[01:27] Stephanie: Yeah, I can, you know, kill you with my elbow. Sometimes I think, I wonder what it would have been like to be on more of a team sport for a season. I didn’t really get that, but that’s okay. I got a lot of other things.

[01:46] Marcus: Yeah, there’s stuff we miss out on, isn’t there?

[01:51] Stephanie: But that’s fun stuff. All right, well, the Israelites have been learning skills in boot camp. We have just been working through a bit of Leviticus. Last week we talked about the day of atonement and now boot camp is over. It’s time to pack up and hit the road onto the promised land.

[02:14] Marcus: Here we go.

[02:15] Stephanie: Or is it.

[02:18] Marcus: Second start?

[02:19] Stephanie: Indubitably. We talked about this in a prior episode. Deuteronomy 1,2, and 3 starts off with what you have called, one of the snarkiest or most sarcastic verses. Where it’s an eleven day journey, and then it follows up with, in the 40th year. And you are like, wait, what happened?

[02:43] Marcus: Eleven day journey from Horeb to Kadesh and into the 40th year. They intentionally set those things next to each other. This is an eleven day journey and in the 40th year. It’s clearly intended to drive home this fact that it was never supposed to be this way. In fact, we’ve probably said this before, but God had a two year boot camp. And that two year boot camp was basically several months to get from Egypt to Mount Sinai. A whole year at Mount Sinai and then a few more months from Mount Sinai up to Kadesh, from which he was going to launch a southern invasion into the land. But someone suggested, well, we should probably send some spies in to see what this is all about. And Moses approved the plan and that’s when everything came to a screeching halt.

[03:35] Stephanie: Numbers is kind of the answer to the question, why 40 years? Why did it take all that extra time? And so the spies is our inciting incident. Do you want to unpack that a little bit more?

[03:50] Marcus: Yeah. So when they got to Kadesh, which is on the northern edge of the Sinai peninsula, and it’s right on the southern border of Canaan. God basically said, okay, it’s time, we’re going to go in. Which is kind of interesting because, essentially, you think about boot camp as training and they sort of failed and failed and failed. And now it’s time to go in. I think there’s a lesson there in the first place, too, several lessons. One is, God isn’t interested in perfection.

We can fail and he doesn’t give up on us because we failed. He’s also like, sometimes you can’t grow and you can’t learn if you don’t fail. Along the way, I remember hearing your grandpa say many times, I don’t know why people are so hard on folks who fail. You can’t grow and you can’t get better if you don’t fail. And God clearly had that attitude towards them. Although they’d failed multiple tests in the boot camp stage of things, he said, okay, it’s time to go in.

And it’s at this point that the Israelites themselves said, well, maybe we should send in some spies first and see what we’re up against. Moses approved the plan and they sent them in. They come back with this horrifying message. This horrifying report said, well, we got good news and bad news. The good news is the fruit here is amazing. We haven’t seen anything like this in years. Literally they’re talking about taking two men to haul a pole with grapes on it.

He said this is truly a land flowing with milk and honey, truly a place of abundance, we couldn’t ask for a better place. But, the land is filled with enemies stronger than us and they begin to delineate them. It’s like the Amalekites who live in the Negev, we’ve already had to fight a small group of them once in the desert, and Moses held his hands up the whole time. But that’s just one enemy. They got the Amalekites, we got the Canaanites, we got the Amorites, and we got the Hittites. Hittites are the Hittites, which was one of the major empires of the ancient world.

And then there are worst of all, Anakim. So what are these Anakim?And it says, in case we’re not sure, they’re the descendants of the Nephilim. And the Nephilim as we probably all know by now, is what they called the children of the sons of God and the daughters of men before the days of Noah. And the Septuagint actually translates the word Nephilim to giants. There are giants in the land. In fact, Goliath later on is a descendant of Anakin, which would be the Anakim.

So Goliath is one of the Anakim. And they’re like, okay, this is just horrible. There’s no way, every one of these groups are stronger than us and there’s giants. We look like grasshoppers to the giants and rightfully so, because that’s how we felt in their presence. They come back, and the whole Israelite community just starts wailing. They are just beside themselves.

Now we look at it from our sort of a detached perspective. We say, well, God had just whopped the Egyptians, so why couldn’t they trust the God who had just decimated Egypt? Who parted the Red Sea? It’s only been two years at this point. He appeared to them at Mount Sinai, shook the mountain, spoke to them, and provided them with manna. How? It’s a legitimate question, and it’s one of the reasons why their punishment is so strong.

God has just done this to Egypt who is way more powerful than all these people in Canaan. He’s just shown them his power and his majesty on multiple occasions. And they should have by now learned that they could trust him. And instead all they could see was the size of the enemy, they could not see God.

[08:11] Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, this is unfair. I thought we’d arrived? Why battles?  And God says, haven’t you learned, I fight your battles.

[08:22] Marcus: Yeah. I’m not sure what they were expecting. If they thought, okay, we just got to get through the wilderness and then they’re going to open up the doors and give us the land. I don’t know what they were expecting?  I think what they realized was that this is not possible, it is too big.

[08:39] Stephanie: Unless God shows up.

[08:40] Marcus: Unless God shows up.

[08:41] Stephanie: Which he has.

[08:42] Marcus: This is that classic children’s song, “ten were bad and two were good. Twelve men spied in Canaan’s land.”

[08:48] Stephanie: Yes. So more about that, two were good and they learned the lessons from boot camp. The other ten apparently did not. So what lessons did Joshua and Caleb learn?

[09:02] Marcus: So overall, the big lessons of boot camp are trust God and obey him and he will take care of you. That’s the number one overall lesson. Trust God, obey him, do things his way, he’ll take care of the results. The second lesson of boot camp is stop thinking like a slave and start thinking like a child of the king.  Start thinking like holy people, like someone who is holy and beloved and not of this world, and connected to this amazing God.

That’s the second lesson of boot camp. But then after that there are all these specific lessons that come out like, is there no water? God can heal water that isn’t drinkable. He can bring water from a rock. Are you under attack from an enemy you didn’t see coming? God can use intercession to win that battle. And do you have no food to eat? God can send quail. There’s a lot of lessons and individual lessons..

[10:08] Stephanie: Water wafers, water wars.

[10:08] Marcus: Yeah. Water wafers, water war. There’s a lot of ways God has provided for them and more than anything, he is the God who took them out of Egypt. That smelting pot it’s called, the iron furnace. And he’s like, never forget that you were in an absolutely hopeless situation against an enemy so powerful, that no one ever even dreamed that this could happen. Yet here we are. And he’s like, so that’s the core lesson.  I have given you every reason to understand that I can do this.

[10:43] Stephanie: Yeah. So what can we learn from these lessons?

[10:50] Marcus: We learn the same lessons. We see this over and over again in our own lives. God gets us out of one situation and we can find ourselves in the next one. And we’re going, oh but, maybe I better take care of this one myself. And that happens over and over again where we stop seeking God. We stop learning what trusting him looks like in this situation? Because what God ultimately wants is not for us to follow a life of principles. He wants us to follow a life of relationship with him where we are just connecting with him on everything. Like in the emotional healing realm.

Working with people through the years, one of the things I discovered was that you can’t always just rely on principles of how things work to know what to do. You have to stop, you have to pause, and you have to pray. I would pray and they would pray. I’d see what I felt like God was saying to me and they’d see what God was saying to them. And I found that God rarely used the same strategy twice. He has a specific strategy for every situation that is in front of us.

And that’s kind of how God wants us to live life. You know, don’t just assume that because I did it one way in the past that I’m going to do it that way in the future. What is consistent in all of this is I will be there and you can trust me. And we should stay connected as we go through this.

[12:22] Stephanie: The formula isn’t, strike this rock in this manner and this is what will happen. The formula is to seek me.

[12:29] Marcus: Yeah. It’s not, next time you come into bitter water, throw a stick in it or add some salt and everything will be fine. That’s not the point. The point is when you run into something like that, go find God and see what he wants to do and do that.

[12:41] Stephanie: Let’s go back to ten. There was a very skewed report that turned into the people saying, no, we don’t want to go in. We don’t trust God and they are railing. Can you pick up the story from there?

[13:01] Marcus: Yeah, literally it says in chapter 14 of Numbers, verse one, “The whole community broke into loud cries and the people wept that night. All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron and the whole community told them, if only we had died in the land of Egypt. If only we had died in this wilderness. Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword?”

And then we get to this line, our wives and our children will become plunder. God is not deaf, right? He hears these things. He goes, so you’re worried about your wives and your children? What ends up happening is he says, well, your children are going to end up taking this place, not you. Which is far from them being offered up on the platter to be destroyed. They’re actually going to do what you are not going to do. Because one of the things we see is that God is just.

And one of the ways that his justice is seen is that his punishment always fits the crime. And there is something almost poetic about the justice when he meets it out. Like, this is exactly the right judgment for what has happened here. Now, before we get to the judgment, we have Joshua and Caleb falling down in front of the people saying, no, no, no, we should trust. In fact, one of the classic lines here is that Caleb quieted the people.

This is verse 30 of chapter 13. “Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, let’s go up now.  Let’s take possession of the land, because we can certainly do it.” That line, “we can certainly do it”, was based on his confidence in God. He had learned the lessons of the boot camp and for some reason, the rest of them had not.

[14:52] Stephanie: Even with the cry. Then once God says, okay, you’re not gonna go in. And they’re like, no, okay, we’ll go do it in our own strength. And he’s like, nope. The last thing I told you was, no, go head that direction. And now you’re disobeying again.

[15:07] Marcus: The end of the story is that once God delivers his judgment, okay, you’re gonna stay in the wilderness and you said, why didn’t we die in the wilderness? Guess what? You’re going to die in the wilderness. In other words, every aspect of his judgment was essentially taking their accusations against God and turning it back on them. When they realize that they have been doomed to wander in this wilderness forever, then they go, no, no, no, no. They panic and they’re like, we’ll go in.

And they try to invade the land of their own strength. And they were absolutely right. They were not strong enough to take these people on unless God showed up, and God had already said, I’m not in this. And this is also where we distinguish presumption from faith. Faith is obeying God even when what he’s asking you to do doesn’t look possible. So what Caleb is saying is faith.

We can go in. I know there’s Nephilim. I know there’s giants. I know there’s strong people, but we have Yahweh. So let’s do this. That’s faith. Presumption is God saying, don’t go in there, don’t go do this. This is not my plan for you and you insisting that this ought to be God’s plan, so we’re going to do it anyway. That’s presumption.

[16:28] Stephanie: Mm hmm. And so what we see is, are there consequences to abandoning the journey? Yes. But does that mean God’s just done with them or  that is the total end of the journey? No, God still gets the people of Israel as a whole to the promised land. But there is a generation who does not.

[16:52] Marcus: Well, I think about this generation quite a bit. Here they are and they’ve just been sentenced to 38 years in the wilderness, they know it. They have been put in a box, so to speak. You’re going to spend the next 38 years in this box called the desert. It feels like somebody who’s just been given a sentence in prison and you know, for the next 38 years you’re going to be in prison. Similar issues here.

And that is, okay, but what are you going to do with those 38 years? Are you going to sit there and be bitter and rebellious and demonstrate to everybody why you’re there in the first place? Or are you going to learn some lessons here and make this the best that it can be despite that. What we see from Israel in these 38 years is bitterness and rebellion and complaining on an escalating scale. That just confirms why God did this in the first place. They did not, a single time, trust him and obey him with anything that happened during that wilderness. So the reason we call it the wilderness of mediocrity is that they’re fighting battles. They were afraid of the battles in Canaan, but they’re still fighting battles in the wilderness. It’s just that these battles aren’t gaining ground for them.

And so I think that all of us find ourselves in places like that. There are times when decisions we’ve made have created consequences we can’t get out of. I think about people whose marriages have ended and their kids don’t live with them anymore. And there are some realities here that they’re living with. There are consequences here. They can’t change those.

But that doesn’t mean that I should live in bitterness and anger and rebellion and become a miserable, angry person as a result. I need to look at the situation I’m at and say, okay, this is what I’m facing. This is reality. How do I walk with God through this now? And I look at other situations where things that I have done have created consequences. Maybe they were my fault, maybe they weren’t. But I am looking at consequences now that I can’t change. And I can either be angry and bitter over the fact that I can’t change those consequences, or I can find God in the midst of those consequences. And that’s really what this is calling us to do.

[19:10] Stephanie: Yeah. Could you give us some practical next steps for what that might look like.

[19:14] Marcus: In terms of finding God?

[19:15] Stephanie: Sure. If you’re in the midst of a wilderness and you’ve been miring yourself in despair or complaint. Is there a way to turn that around?

[19:26] Marcus: Sure. I’ve talked to people who are just so angry about the family they grew up in for example, and they’re jealous. You’ve heard it your whole life. You should be so thankful you grew up in the family you’re in, and you’re like, well, I’m sorry you didn’t have a good family. There are people who are just locked in that and it’s become a prison for them. They’re going to actually be better off if they can find ways to forgive their family for what’s going on.

If they’re currently in a really messy relationship, if they’re in a really bad situation, they can either be really angry, like, God, why are you permitting this? God, why are you allowing me to go through this? Are you angry at me? What’s going on? Or you can seek God in the midst of this. God, what is the best, healthiest, wisest way to walk through what I have to walk through right now? And I’ve just seen people go both directions on this.

There are people who are in really, really hard situations that they can’t change, who are actually flourishing in their walk with God. Life isn’t easy, but their walk with God is something I look up to. And there are people in situations like this who almost refuse to have a walk with God because they’re so angry about what’s going on. And Israel kind of fell into that.

[20:45] Stephanie: So first steps look different for different people, a first step could be forgiveness. Could people in that situation go straight into listening prayer?

[21:01] Marcus: Well, they can. If you look at what Israel should have done? Israel should have repented and said, what do you want us to do? What do you want us to do? And if it’s turn around and go head back into the desert, then okay, we will turn around and go back into the desert. But from now on, their vow should have been, we will obey you from now on. But that’s not what they did.

[21:28] Stephanie: They didn’t repent.

[21:29] Marcus: They didn’t really repent. They said the words, we were wrong, we should have gone in, we’re going to do it now. But that’s not what God was asking at that point. And so the answer always is, I should seek God and I should push into that relationship with him. And so that looks different. So they needed true repentance and they needed to forgive Moses. They needed to forgive some people for even perceptions that they had about them. And they needed to obey God, knowing that whatever happens next is going to go better if we obey.

[22:10] Stephanie: Yeah. Okay. Good word. I’m going to pause for some announcements.  Are you wanting to see Deeper Walk people in person? First announcement is, we are joining the disciple making forum on May 1st and 2nd in Indianapolis, Indiana. We’ll be alongside a lot of other fun ministries and doing good content. So if you are into disciple making and want to come say hi to us, we will have a booth there. We’ll have several sessions and that will be a delight.

And second is, Deeper Walk is having summer intensives at our Joy Center in Hobart, Indiana. There are several things happening. Dan and Sarah Allison are going to be leading an intensive through spiritual warfare tools and training. Melissa Finger is going to be covering complex trauma, what every people helper needs to know. And Dawn Whitestone is going to be leading a weekend of prayer for our children as well as a celebration, graduation, reunion for the School of Ministry.

All of those opportunities are happening this summer and we encourage you to check into it. dwisom.org.   You can find more information there. Early bird pricing ends May 1 and the deadline for all the summer intensive registrations is May 22. So if you’re interested, dwisom.org. All right, Father, any final thoughts?

[23:53] Marcus: One of my favorite verses is in Numbers, chapter 14, verse. Let’s see if I get this right here. Verse nine. Caleb is giving his reasoning for why he thinks they should go into the land. And he says this, an english translation I have here says, their protection has been removed from them. The Lord is with us. Don’t be afraid of them. Now, the literal word protection is their cloud has been removed. Their shade has been removed. So in a desert area, sun beating down, a cloud was protection.

So they’ve kind of interpreted it for us in the translation. Something in the spirit of Joshua and Caleb sensed that God had already done something in the spirit realm and that this place was ready to fall. And so they said, one, their protection is gone. By that I think they mean their spiritual protection. Some kind of a spiritual battle had already been won. And second, the Lord is with us. Caleb had this spiritual sensitivity to recognize that, you know what? The time is right, whereas the others were completely walking in the flesh. And so Caleb is the model of living in the spirit even though it’s an Old Testament saint, he was living in the spirit. Whereas the rest of the community was walking in the flesh. And just like Paul says, that the spirit brings life and peace and joy and love, and the flesh brings division and anger and murder and all these other things. And we see it played out in the wilderness stories.

[25:30] Stephanie: Very good. I look forward to continuing next week. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the trail today. Did you like this episode? Would you like more people to see it? This is the part where I ask you to, like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend. Do you love this channel? One of the best ways that you can support us is by becoming a Deeper Walk Trailblazer. Thanks again.

We’ll see you back on the trail next week.