The Dangers of Commitment

I want to preach to you today on the subject, the dangers of commitment. Now I know that may cause some questions, it may raise some questions with you about what are you talking about. I understand if you want to preach on the joys of commitment, I will understand if you want to preach on the blessings of commitment. The dangers of commitment? Yes, indeed the dangers of commitment. The truth is if you commit yourself, if you determine that you are going to live for Christ wholeheartedly, then you become a target. You become a target of the enemy. Such is the case with Moses. We are going to see that today in Numbers, chapters 11 and 12. Last week we looked at Moses on the mountain, Mount Sinai. And we saw that on Mount Sinai he was called to meet with God. And there he is, meeting with God. He is hearing God's word. He is talking to the Lord and they are conversing back and forth. And a wonderful time it was. God kept Moses and Israel there at the mountain for 11 months. And during those 11 months God did a lot of things. And a lot of it was very personal with Moses. A lot of it was intense time with God on the part of Moses talking with the Lord. He actually receives the word of God, the law of God, the plans for the tabernacle, all of the plans for the Levitical priesthood. And everything that's going to happen in the worship system described in the book of Leviticus, he receives all of that directly from God. He actually is allowed to see the afterglow, if you will, of God's glory. And when he comes down from the mountain his face is shining itself with the glory of God, his face is glowing. Now as I mentioned, 11 months Israel is at the foot of the mountain and Moses goes back and forth up on the mountain to talk with God. And that time that starts in Exodus 19 goes all the way through numbers 11 because everything recorded in the last part of the book of Exodus, all of the Leviticus and the first 10 chapters of numbers are in that 11 months. So we're going to zip forward, fast forward the tape, if you will, until we get the numbers chapter 11, which is the next significant event in Moses' life. He has experienced a mountain top experience with God really, literally. And as he sets out, and as the people of Israel set out on the rest of their journey, lo and behold, Moses immediately faces three attacks, three attacks. You wouldn't think it. You would think that there are on a mountain top experience coming off of that great spiritual high. Everyone would be together and ready to walk with God and serve God, but Moses faces three attacks. I think that teaches us a lesson. Have you decided to really follow the Lord? Have you just maybe even last week, you decided after hearing that message on time with the Lord meeting with him, maybe you decided, I will meet with God. I will develop a time in the Word and in prayer. I'm going to be consistent with that. And what have you found this week? You have found attacks on your life and on your willingness and consistency in having that time with God. So have you decided to really follow the Lord? If so, the enemy has gotten word and you are in his crosshairs. He will attack you. You make a decision to follow Christ. You can expect opposition. You can expect the attack of the enemy. Paul warned us about that in 2 Timothy chapter 3. Paul said in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. You commit yourself to live a godly life. The enemy is coming after you and sometimes you will actually use other people to persecute you and attack you. But sometimes it's the devil himself who is attacking you. Peter warns us about that in 1 Peter chapter 5. When he says, be alert and of sober mind, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resistant standing firm in the faith because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. You commit yourself to live for Christ. You will face attack. You will face opposition. You will face difficulty in problems. But the Lord also promises that if you decide you are going to follow him closely, he will come to your aid. Look at this verse in Psalm 4 and verse 3, know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself. The Lord hears when I call to him. David says, God has set apart the one who decides to faithfully serve him. He sets him apart for himself. He hears when we call to him. So yes, you decide to follow Christ wholeheartedly. You become a target for the enemy, but you also become a special target of God's blessing and object of God's blessing. He will help you. Now we are going to look at Moses this morning and the attack the enemy made on him. They are three of them in chapters 11 and 12, but each of them carries a twofold danger. There is the danger of the attack itself and then there is the danger of the potential response to the attack. And both things can get you. And that is why it is important for us to understand not only that we will face attack, that we will come into the enemy's attack, but it is also important to understand how to respond because if you do not respond correctly, that is just as damaging to you as the attack itself. And so let us look at Moses. Let us look at him and learn. Let us see what we can learn from the attacks on Moses. The first attack on Moses was an attack of complaining in chapter 11 verses 1 through 17. Let us look at the actual complaining. The Israelites did. Now the people, verse 1, now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord. Now please, it is so easy because we are starting there this morning to miss out on the full of thought. They have been for 11 months in the presence of God. God has been meeting with them. They have been receiving his word. They have been communicating with him. They have seen all those pyro-technic displays and all that happened on the mountain with the smoke and the fire and the loud trumpet sounds and the voice of God that is deafening. It has been an amazing spiritual experience. And that has gone on for 11 months. And so you would think as they now begin to make their way on their journey, as they pick up and start to journey on after these 11 months, they will be riding a spiritual high and they will all be on the same page spiritually and they will be behind their leader Moses ready to take the promised land. And the very first thing you hear is complaining. Complaining. The people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord. Now notice what said next. And when he heard them, when the Lord heard them, his anger was aroused. The Hebrew word literally means his nose was hot. It is a very picturesque way of describing the burning anger of the Lord. You know, sometimes when you get really angry your face gets hot. Well, that's literally what's happening here. God's nose was hot. He was angry with his people for their complaining spirit. So notice what happens. The end of verse 1, then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. Now you say, why did God burn the outskirts of the camp? We're going to be introduced in a couple of verses to what the Bible calls the rabble or the mixed multitude. Kind of some hangers on. People who just kind of decided, oh, this is a cool thing. God's doing with Israel. I think we'll kind of make the trip with them and they hung around the edges, the outskirts. They're a constant source of problem through the wilderness journeys. And probably that's the reason God starts there. That's where the complaining started. And so God began judging on the outskirts of the camp. Verse 2, when the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. So that place was called Tabara because fire from the Lord had burned among them. Now look at verse 4, the rabble with them began to crave other food. And again, that rabble is that mixed multitude, most of whom were not believers actually. They were just kind of with the children of Israel. They're not really sold on what God is doing. They're not really committed to a relationship with God, not really serious about what God is doing. So they're a constant source of complaining about all the problems they see around them. The rabble with them began to crave other food. And again, the Israelites started whaling. You see, the rabble gets the Israelites starting to complain. And said, if only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost. Also, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, read there in our culture ramps. Leaks, onions, and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite and no wonder. If I was all the time eating rams and onions and garlic, I'd lose my appetite too. We wouldn't be able to taste anything. He says, they say we never see anything but this manna. That was God's provision. I mean, verses 7 through 9 describe the manna. What it looked like, how they got it. It was God's provision. It was the perfect food. And yet, even the very perfect provision of God, they're going to complain about. And so they find whatever they can to complain about. You know, in any good-sized group, whether it be a school, a business, a class, or church, or whatever it may be. In any good-sized group, you'll always find some rabble. That's not my word. That's God's word. Some mist multitude of complainers who don't appreciate what God's doing and all they want to do is complain. They're not really serious about living for the Lord, so they feel their ministry is to point out everything that's wrong. And complain. If you're not careful, you'll either get dragged in to the complaining or you'll get dragged down by it. Complaining a complaining spirit is an awful burden to have to carry along. And you'll find yourself either joining in with it or getting pulled down by it. It's all something interesting this week. I actually read the story first and then looked up the clip. Robinson Kanau is a Major League Baseball player. He's been an all-star for several years. He played for the Yankees, Second Basement. And he was, he signed a multi-year multi-million dollar contract with Seattle a couple of years ago. And skip that a New York. Well, in the spring of 2014, he was coming back to New York to play his first Major League game in New York since he had signed with him. So Jimmy Fallon and tonight's show crew decided to welcome him back to New York in this way. Just watch if you will. Tomorrow night, Robinson Kanau, the former New York Yankee All-Star Second Basement, returns to Yankee Stadium for the first time since he left for a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Seattle Mariners. Now, obviously Kanau is going to hear a lot of fair share of booze when he sets up to the plate tomorrow. And well, that could be jarring for any player. So that's why, to get used to it, we sent Robinson Kanau out to the streets of New York to get booed by actual Yankee fans. But here's the catch. The fans felt they were just booing a cardboard cutout of Robinson Kanau. They didn't realize that the real Robinson Kanau was standing right behind it. The reactions are pretty great. Check it out. Y'all know what I'm missing. And I'm about to get booed by Suenjian Kiseng. Are you Yankee fans? Yes. Now Robinson Kanau is coming back to Yankee Stadium tomorrow night for the first time since he's coming at Seattle Mariners. Are you going to booze him? Of course. Well, we have this picture of him right behind you. So whenever you're ready, go ahead and boo it as much as you want. Boo! You know Longo, welcome here. But, trying again. You know Longo. Are you going to boo it? You know, you won a World Series ring here, but he didn't leave for the money, so why don't you go ahead and give him as many booze as you want? Come on Robinson. I mean, how many World Series titles do the Mariners have? Come on. Boo! You better than that. You got to be here now. You better than that. Boo! What are you doing? Me. Welcome back to New York. I'm wondering if you're ready. Go ahead and boo. You just go high, boo! Trying to do it in one more time. You're going to be here? Yes, I am. Boo! We actually have this picture of him right behind you. So whenever you're ready, go ahead and boo it as much as you want. Boo Robinson, you should have stayed here. When is this in New York? Not in Seattle. Try to be in a one more time. Boo! Stay in Seattle. We don't need you in New York. Hey! How do you? I'm good. I need you in New York. Go ahead and boo it as much as you want. Boo! Boo! I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'll be rooting for you there. I'll play well but not when. That's so classic. You know, sometimes when we complain, we complain about someone to someone else. That's typically how we do it, right? If we have genuine complaints, we don't take them to the person we need to talk to. We start talking to everybody else. Like the rabble was. Talking to the other Israelites and getting the other Israelites involved in this complaining and wailing, you know, it might help us to realize we're talking about a real person. And maybe we need to go to that real person who has real feelings and real hearts and real joys and sorrows just like we do and talk to them face to face. It might temper some of our complaining if we would do that. Complaining leads to the potential for discouragement. Notice the possible response is discouragement. I do not care how eager you are to walk with God. You hear complaining long enough and it begins to get to you. It begins to work on you. It begins to drag you down. I don't care how spiritual you are. The most spiritual people in the Bible got discouraged because of complaining. Case in point, Moses. Moses did not handle this very well. Not only was the possible response to discouragement, that's actually how he responded. Look at verse 10. Moses heard the people of every family wailing each at the entrance to his tent. The Lord became exceedingly angry and Moses was troubled. And so what Moses does is he goes to the Lord and he starts talking to God. But notice what he says, verse 11, he asks the Lord, why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms as a nurse carries an infant to the land you promised on oath to give their forefathers? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me. Let us give us meat to eat. I cannot carry all these people by myself. The burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now. If I have found favor in your eyes and do not let me face my own ruin. Wow, Moses is really discouraged. I mean, he's hit rock bottom. He didn't handle this very well. You see, he wanted so much for the people of Israel to catch his vision. God has delivered them. His power is directly manifested to his people. Has been for 11 months on this mountain. He has given them his promises, his word. He has made them his covenant people. He has provided them. Moses wants them so much to have a heavenly appetite, but they didn't get it. And it finally wore him down. He's really down. One of Satan's most effective attacks on those who seek to serve the Lord and follow the Lord, regardless of who you are, is for someone else to start nitpicking, complaining, complaining. Round the outskirts, complaining, picking at everything that's wrong. And pretty soon you're saying, forget it. Forget it. I just can't take this anymore. Elijah felt the same way. What in his Moses? Elijah felt the same way. Elijah, the great prophet of God, who is used by God to bring a miracle on Mount Carmel, a fire of God from heaven to consume the sacrifice. The prophets of veil are destroyed. And in the very next chapter is running for his life from Queen Jezebel, who says, I'm going to kill you. And he crawls up under a juniper tree after a long journey and says, God, just take my life. I'm no better than my fathers. They couldn't bring revival. I can't either. I'm no better. Just take my life. I'm done. Jonah said the same thing. Another prophet of God. After a tremendous citywide revival, you talk about a mountaintop experience, the whole city of Nineveh has come to the Lord. And Jonah is complaining about it himself. Why? Because he knows that God has just spared the people that will become the greatest enemy of his people Israel and will end up destroying them mercilessly. And Jonah doesn't like what God's done. And so he asks God just to take his life. I love how God responds to that. Whenever you get so low, so down because of attacks, opposition, complaining, whatever it may be, whenever you get so discouraged. And you even maybe pour out your heart to God and say, God, I'm done. I quit. I'm not going to live for you anymore if it's like this. I love the way God responds to him. God doesn't tear into him. God doesn't even correct or rebuke him at this point. Moses is too low for that. Notice what God does in verse 16. The Lord said to Moses, bring me 70 of Israel's elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Had them come to the tent of meeting that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there. And I will take up the spirit that is on you and put the spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone. God reaches out in abundant mercy and grace and says, Moses, what you need is not more somebody coming after you. You need help. You need help. And so here's some folks that can help you, Moses. You know, when you're so far down because of attacks that you're so discouraged, you don't want to go another day. You know what you need? You need someone who will come to your side and say, here I am. I'm here to help. Would you be that instrument of God to help that brother or sister who is discouraged? I mean, you see it. You see them down. You see them discouraged. You see them struggling to make it another day. Well, you've been the instrument of God to speak into their lives to encourage them and help them. That's what God does for Moses. The attack of complaining, the potential response is just as bad and that is discouragement. But then notice the second attack. It's the attack of comparison. And it really did follow right on the heels of what we've just seen. In fact, it comes about as a result of Moses gathering the 70 elders who are going to be his helpers and something happens in that very process that leads to another attack. Notice in verse 24, the next few verses, verses 18 to 23, just tell how God's going to give them meat to eat, give them quail, give them so much so we sick of it. But look down to verse 24. And here is the comparison. So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together 70 of their elders, had them stand around the tent. The tent is the tabernacle. The tent of meeting it sometimes called. Verse 25, then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him and he took of the spirit that was on him and put the spirit on the 70 elders. When the spirit rested on them, they prophesied but they did not do so again. He said, what in the world is going on there? Please don't see this as God taking a piece of the Holy Spirit, 70 pieces and taking a little bit away from Moses and Moses has less of the Holy Spirit and each of these other men has just a little bit of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a material substance that you divide up. He's a spirit being. So really what's being talked about here is God took the same power of the spirit that was on Moses and placed it on these 70 other leaders. And to confirm the fact that they were especially chosen by God to be leaders, they prophesied. Now we're not told what that looked like, what it sounded like, so we don't really know. All we know is that prophecy is communicating a word from God, a message from God to people. And so evidently they're speaking some kind of message from God and that serves as a temporary sign or confirmation of their credentials to be a prophet like Moses. To help Moses carry the load. Bible says they don't keep doing that. This is just a one time kind of sign or credential that they should be considered prophets just like Moses. Well notice what happens next and this is really where the comparison comes in verse 27. A young man, excuse me, verse 26, however, two men whose names were L. Dad and Me Dad. Couple of good names if you're looking for names, mothers for your kids. Him, L. Dad, Him, Me Dad. I don't know, I just give you a couple ideas there. To these guys had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders but did not go out to the tent yet the spirit also rested on them and they prophesied in the camp. And notice there's these two guys who are part of the 70 that are chosen. They're elders. They're supposed to be helping in the same way. But for whatever reason they do not go out to the tabernacle with the others. We don't know why they're not rebuked for it. So we assume there was a good reason. Maybe they were sick. Maybe they were otherwise occupied, taking care of family that had problems they could not go. And so God gave them a pass on that. He didn't accuse them of anything. But he does pour out his spirit on them also and they are prophesying not out of the tabernacle with the rest but in the camp of all things. Verse 27. A young man ran and told Moses, L. Dad and Me Dad are prophesying in the camp. Joshua son of none who had been Moses, AIDS and youth spoke up and said, Moses, my Lord, stop them. Now you get the idea that what's happening here is this young man in verse 27 and Joshua even in verse 28 kind of see these two as a threat to Moses. Moses, they're doing what you're supposed to be doing and they're not out here with our group in the tabernacle. And so we think these guys may be a threat to you. They're taking your place. They're doing what you're supposed to do. We can't have this in the comparison's start between what Moses is responsible to do and these other two guys that don't seem to be sanctioned quite the same way. Well, the potential response, the possible response to this is divisiveness. You see, if Moses had responded to these to Joshua and to this other young man, if Moses had responded by saying, you know, you're right. That is my responsibility. That's my place and these other guys are trying to take my authority. Then you know what would have happened. People would have started choosing sides. Oh, I'm a Moses guy. Well, I'm a L. Dad guy. I'm a meat dad guy. You know, they would start choosing sides. And you would have had them lining up saying, I think this person has the right to do this and Moses is not the only authority and so forth. But not Moses. He doesn't respond that way. Thankfully on this occasion, he responds correctly. He responds in a way that will not allow any divisiveness among the people. Notice his answer in verse 29. But Moses replied, are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them. Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. I love the way that is said. Moses says, don't be jealous for my sake. Don't think. Don't think I'm going to look at these guys and say, oh, they're trying to take my place. They're trying to do what I do. Only I'm supposed to do that. There's no jealousy here. Moses's heart is, I wish the spirit of God would rest on all the people of Israel. Everyone would be equipped to do the same thing. Okay. Now guys, let's go back to camp discussion over. No more discussion on that topic. I love the way he handles it. He handles it with a spirit of humility and grace. There is no insecurity on his part. There is no selfishness. There's no desire for a claim. There's nothing that anybody can say to him that will generate in him the thinking that, well, you know, maybe you're right. Maybe these guys are trying to usurp my authority. We're not going to have that. And there's none of that in Moses. If you are committed to living for the Lord, you will find at times a rising within you, a temptation. And that is a temptation to get jealous over someone else who's serving the Lord and what they're doing and how they're doing it and what their results may be. You know what our response should be to that rather than the divisiveness that so often happens with the competitive spirit in the church and in Christianity and among pastors and so what you know what our response should be. Thank God. I hope God blesses them tremendously. And I hope God uses them tremendously. That's what that's what Moses was saying with the God that all the people would serve this way. There's no selfishness on his part. He does not feel indispensable to the ministry of Israel. There are other people who can do this. And so he has the spirit that let's let and rejoice in what other people do in their giftedness, in their ability and the power of God upon their lives. There's so much divisiveness in the church today. I'm not talking about necessarily our church, but the church as a whole and so much competition and people saying, well, this person does this better than this person and that. And it's all it's all a tap from the enemy to get us divided when we ought to be saying, let's stay united and maybe we can serve together. I'm not a big Linda Rons stat fan, but I was interested to read about in her book written in 2013 called Simple Dreams, the 11 time Grammy Award winner said, this was my reaction when I first heard the music of Emilio Harris. I'm going to quote from her book, my first reaction to it was slightly conflicted. First, I loved her singing wildly. Second, in my opinion, she was doing what I was trying to do, only a whole lot better. Then came a split second decision that I made that affected the way I listened to and enjoyed music for the rest of my life. I thought that if I allowed myself to become envious of Emmy, it would be painful to listen to her and I would deny myself the pleasure of it. If I simply surrendered to loving what she did, I could take my rightful place among the other drooling Emilio fans and then maybe, just maybe, I might be able to sing with her. I surrendered. You know, she went on not only to sing with Emilio Harris, but also to record three award-winning albums with Emilio Harris and Dolly Parton as a trio. You see, what happens when we surrender to the fact that God can use other people and we are not indispensable to the work of God, that God has many people that he's got his hand on and can use in great ways. When we surrender to that, then we're able to make beautiful music together. But if we stand for my place, my authority, my position and don't you dare get near it, then we're going to create divisiveness in the family, in the body of Christ. So attack, a very subtle attack, the attack of comparison. But there's a third attack and this comes from the most unlikely of sources. It's the attack of criticism. Chapter 12 tells us of this attack, verse 1, notice the criticism. Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his kushite wife, for he had married a kushite. Now, Bible commentators have struggled for centuries to try to figure out what is going on here. First of all, this criticism comes from Moses' brother and sister of all people, the family. And they're criticizing about the woman he's married. Now, the mystery is why did he marry a kushite wife? Did he divorce Zephora who has mentioned as his wife earlier in the text? Well, maybe she had died. The Lord does not condemn him for what he's done. In fact, the Lord will take up his side in just a moment. So possibly Zephora had died or maybe kushite and midian where Zephora came from are one and the same. There's a verse interesting verse in Habakkuk. The Bakkuk 3.7 that seems to equate those two. Kushite is just another name for midian. So it could be that this is Zephora. And it could be that for a long time they harbored some resentment about Moses marrying a woman who was not a Hebrew, who was not one of the ones in Egypt who went through all of the suffering and the slavery, the bondage and all of that. Maybe they've been harboring some resentment about that. And now it kind of boils over. But that's not the real reason. I mean, that's just where the lightning hits. That's not the real reason for their criticism. Look at verse 2. Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? They asked, Hasn't he also spoken through us? Ah, so really has nothing to do with his wife. That's just the rationale for making the criticism. The real reason for the criticism is Moses has too much power. He think the Lord only speak through him. He speaks through us too, doesn't he? And then I want you to notice the next five words. These are ominous. And the Lord heard this. You know, the Lord hears everything we say, but that's not the point here. The point is that God heard what was being said about Moses and he did not like it. Now, there's an interesting statement in verse 3. Notice it's in parenthesis, probably in most of your Bibles. Verse 3 says, Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. The reasons in parenthesis has probably been Moses did not write this. I mean, you really can't expect someone to say, You know, I'm the most humble man on all the earth. Well, you just lost it, brother. You don't expect Moses to be saying that. Any probably didn't. You know, we know that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, but we also know that the end of Deuteronomy records his death and what happened after his death. I don't think he wrote that. And so there probably was kind of an editor or someone who kind of pulled the five books together and it's probably that person who writes this. The reason is put in parenthesis. This is not part of the flow of the story. This was added later just as an important reflection on how Moses might respond to this criticism. And this is so important. The word humble here is a Hebrew word, which means patient, bearing wrong. Gentle, modest, not pushy. And the idea I get from this word is that Moses was going to not push back, not say anything. He was just going to let it go. But God said, we are not going to let this go. Now Moses was ready just to say, OK, you know, criticism hurts that it's from my brother and sister. I'm just going to let go. But God heard what was said. And notice what God does. The potential response, the possible response to this is defensiveness. You see, Moses could easily have done like us and jumped to defend himself and given all the reasons why he was within these rights to marry this Kushite woman. And no, I'm not the only one that has authority. We just got 70 other people to help us. He could have defended himself. It's difficult when you feel like you're treated unjustly not to do that. But Moses was going to just let it go. And God said, no, look at verse four. Here's how God responds. At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, come out for the tent of meeting all three of you. That doesn't sound good. That's kind of like get to the principal's office right now. Or the boss wants to see you now in his office. That doesn't sound good. OK, Moses is going to kind of let it go. God says, no, no, I've heard this. Now you three get to the tabernacle right now. What happens? That's not pretty. Verse five. Three of them came out the end of verse four. Then verse five. Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud. He stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward, he said, listen to my words. When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions. I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant, Moses. He is faithful in all my house with him. I speak face to face clearly and not in riddles. He sees the form of God. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, Moses? And then look at verse nine. The anger of the Lord burned against them and he left them. That's bad enough to be called to the principal's office. It's worse when the principal lets you have it and then walks out and you're left there kind of thinking, what's next? Am I fired? Do I have a job? What's going on? Well, verse 10, when the cloud lifted from above the tent and that is the cloud that symbolizes the presence of God. God left. So the cloud left. There stood Miriam. Lepras like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy. He said the Moses, please, my Lord, do not hold against us this in. We've so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother's womb with its flesh half eaten away. So Moses cried out to the Lord, oh God please heal her. And God's response was basically if she had been defiled for any other reason, even her father spitting on her human saliva on her would have created spiritual uncleaness not able to go to the Cyberknuckle. She would have had to stay outside the camp for seven days. So seven days it is. Miriam, you go stay outside the camp seven days and the people of Israel are not going to move until those seven days are up and everybody knew why. This is tough love, if you will. This is God's chastening. But Moses did not get defensive. He did not defend himself. He let God defend him. He let God take care of things. And I think the lesson we can learn from that is when we are criticized and the criticism is unjust, be careful about jumping to your defense. Back off a little bit, there may be a time and a place for dealing with that person gently and kindly and giving them correct information. But let God do what he wants to do first. Let God vindicate you. Let God clear your name. That's hard to do. But God can handle it. If you listen to me preach very long, you know one of my favorite historical characters is Abraham Lincoln. In the 1840s there was a famous court case based in Chicago that captured the attention of the entire nation. You can read about it in some of the biography's particularly team of rivals about Lincoln's life. It was labeled the Reaper case. It centered on the patenting of farm equipment that had been invented by Cyrus McCormick. At the time the case had such high stakes and was so high profile that the team of lawyers that was brought in were Ivy League lawyers from the East Coast, the best in the country. And the leader of that was a man by the name of Mr. Stanton. He was a great lawyer, the best lawyer probably in the country. But he realized that in this case since it was being tried in Chicago they needed a local lawyer to try to sway the jury. So he did his homework at when Stanton did and he found a reference of some guy down in the middle of the state and called him up to be on their team. When they saw him they were stunned. He was poorly dressed, he was disheveled, he spoke with a small strong-town accent and used local colloquialisms and funny phrases. He just seemed like a country pumpkin to them. And so they decided. In fact they said to him, Edwin Stanton said in the presence of Lincoln, let's do away with this ape. They didn't invite him to any of their meals. They would give him the wrong times that the case was supposed to be starting the next day so that he would show up late. They viewed him as someone terribly insignificant. Well Stanton won the case and he went on to become one of the leading lights in American legal profession and in politics and would later become the Secretary of War during the Civil War. His boss, Abraham Lincoln. If you read the story, you recognize that 20 years later everybody in the country recognized the kind of man Lincoln was. Yeah, he looked a little funny, he dressed a little funny, he talked a little funny. But he was a man of impeccable character and sharp intellect and deep wisdom. And his rivals, including among them Edwin Stanton, had come to love him and appreciate him and he chose those men to serve on his cabinet. When Lincoln was assassinated it was Edwin Stanton that stood by his bedside until he died and made sure everything was done that could be done to save the president. You know Lincoln did not try to defend himself, he didn't stand up and say you guys aren't taking me seriously, you don't know who I am, he just let it go. Time and truth and God are able to vindicate you against criticism. So sometimes it's best just to let it go and let God defend you. Moses is an example that living a godly life being really committed to the Lord is not necessarily easy. Is it rewarding? Yes. Is it fulfilling? Yes. Is it worthwhile? Yes. But you'll also face attacks, attacks of Satan, attacks of the enemy. Sometimes he'll use people the closest to you to attack you. Sometimes they'll come in the form of complaints, sometimes in the form of comparisons that will seek to draw you into a competitive game. Sometimes it will come in the form of criticism. It may discourage you, it may tempt you to defend yourself, it may tempt you to be divisive. But here's the point of this whole story, I summarized in this one statement. You can grow through such attacks to be more Christlike rather than to be destroyed by them. There is danger in the attack and there's danger in how you respond. But if you respond, as Moses did in the last two of the cases and not as he did in the first one, if you respond biblically and appropriately, you can grow through those attacks. You can become more Christlike rather than being overcome and destroyed by them and God will help you to respond in the right way. Would you pray with me please? Father, I know there are folks that are facing difficult times right now in their lives attacks from the enemy, attacks from Satan. Maybe attacks from others in the family of God or at work. Lord, I pray that you would encourage them today, help them to understand how to respond appropriately to these attacks. May your will be done and may you cause us to follow you closely in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.