Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey everybody, welcome to The Bible Guys. My name is Chris, this is Jeff, and today we have a great episode planned for you.

Jeff:
Great episode. It is so good. And we’re going to start off with maybe one of the most important segments that we share on a fairly regular basis, bringing only the finest news and commentary for our listeners as we just comb the world wide web. Yeah, it is the true definition of fake news. This is from the Babylon Bee. The title is… Let me pull it up here.

Chris:
That’s so funny.

Jeff:
Man uses binoculars to ensure greeters have gone inside before approaching church doors.

Chris:
That’s so good.

Jeff:
Columbia, South Carolina. Security footage from First Methodist Church of Forest Acres revealed that churchgoer Chet Watkinson used a pair of high-powered Celestron SkyMaster 25×70 binoculars to make absolutely certain that the greeters had gone into the church before approaching the sanctuary last Sunday. According to three minutes of grainy images, Watkinson arrived strategically close to the beginning of the service, surreptitiously parked his car at the end of a remote row in the church parking lot, and then peered towards the church doors through a comically large pair of binoculars until he was positive that both of the greeters had gone inside. Introvert that I am, it’s the most nerve-wracking part of my week, Watkinson confessed when asked about his actions. I mean, I love Todd and James, but they’re just so… so friendly every week. And when they always ask how my week was, try to make small talk, I just can’t deal with it. Just being near this many people is terrifying, much less trying to talk to them. It’s too much. So say that Watkinson came close to beating the land speed record for bipeds, efficiently bustling his family into their customary back pew just milliseconds before the opening hymn began. At the end of the service, Watkinson and his family had been spotted slipping out the side door and tiptoeing past the old ladies chatting after the service in order to avoid any unwanted conversations. So funny. At publishing time, Todd and James had purchased ghillie suits and planned to hide in the bushes to ambush Watkinson next week.

Chris:
That’s so good. I know people like this.

Jeff:
Yeah. I’ll be honest with you. That’s kind of me a little bit. Is it? Yeah.

Chris:
Well, yeah, you’re a little bit of an introvert. Yeah. So when you go out into the lobby, it’s not necessarily because you have to, meaning like, like, like, man, I have to go to the lobby and see some people.

Jeff:
You’re going out and recharging your batteries for the next service. Yes.

Chris:
Which is crazy to some people to even think that that can be true.

Jeff:
He’s out there just, Chris, if you think Chris is happy to see you after a service or before service, he’s not, he’s just a relational vampire and he’s sucking all of your energy out of you so he can deliver it out on stage later.

Chris:
If you could peel back the veil, you could see the mist leaving your body. And going through the orifices as I go. That’s exactly right. That’s so funny. So, well, you know what, to be honest with you, I know it sounds crazy, but I do like if I’m back, we do four services on a Sunday, which is crazy. But, you know, like after the third service, I’m like, man, I’m tired. I’m like, I need to go out and I need to talk to some people. And so, and I run out into the lobby, and it’s not just any people. I have to talk to people that are going to be in the church service, because then it reminds me, oh, wow, this guy’s here, this lady’s here, right? They’re here, and they, you know, they’re here because of— And this really matters.

Jeff:
This really matters. It matters for that one. Yes.

Chris:
It matters for him and her and everybody else. And, and, and so it just, it just charges me up because I’m like, okay, now I’m connected to the people who are here and everything else. But, uh, you know, we have several people on the staff that, uh, you know, like you’re wired as an introvert, but our music or worship leader is a pretty massive introvert. Right. And so he forces himself to go into the lobby and, uh, and he does it because of me. Cause he’s like, he’s like, all right, man, he’s like, I’ll do it with you. And so we go out there and stand together. And at the end, he’s like, dude, he’s like, I’m just exhausted.

Jeff:
So technically I’m an extrovert, right? Whenever we take the tests, you know, for personality tests, I lean extrovert, but just barely, like I’m just barely on the extrovert side. So for me, it’s, it’s more about getting revved up for it. Right. Then when I’m out there, I’m always the last one backstage. Right. They have to come and get me and go, Hey, service is starting kind of thing usually. And it’s because I wind up getting to some great conversation and I love it. So for me, I have to convince myself, okay, get going. And once I get going, I love being out with the crowd and with the people and talking and I get in great conversations. It’s the getting myself revved up to get out there. Whereas for you, you’re like, Oh good. Everything else is done. I’m running out in the lobby. It’s just a different. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Chris:
And by the way, my wife, she actually tests introvert. No, is it? Yeah, she tests introvert, but she’s a very high-functioning extrovert. So you would never know she’s an introvert.

Jeff:
High-functioning introvert as an extrovert.

Chris:
Oh, is that what you’re, is that technically the way to say it? Well, she functions well as an extrovert. Yeah. So, so she actually like at a party, you would never know she’s introvert, but like, she’s just, she just runs with the best of them. And you’re like, wow, she has to be an extrovert. And then when everything’s said and done, I’m like, wasn’t that great. And she’s like, I want to collapse. I want to go upstairs and be by myself for an hour. And I’m like, oh, okay. There’s the difference. Right. So yeah.

Jeff:
It feeds you and it drains her.

Chris:
That’s correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff:
Well, that’s what I was saying, that vampire, your energy vampire, you’re just sucking all the energy from everybody else.

Chris:
Yes. And let’s not even get started about the typical greeters.

Jeff:
Next level. I was thinking about it. Next level extroverts, man.

Chris:
That’s right. We don’t want to go there.

Jeff:
They’re just flitting around. They’re like butterflies just flitting around. That’s great. Hey, we need them. Otherwise, well, how often, how often do people send us notes, go, I can’t believe how friendly everybody was. Oh my goodness. It’s one of the first things people say. And it’s, it’s because people are using their gifts, how they’re wired to make sure everybody else feels comfortable. So. Yeah. Anyways, here we are. We’ve gone through a lot of things. They’ve been walking through the desert. They’ve been struggling through being mad at Moses about half the time. There was an insurrection at one point. Korah was going to try to pull off a coup and the ground opens up and swallows everybody that’s going to try to pull off this coup against Moses, all these things. But then finally we come to a very pivotal moment And in Numbers chapter 20 verse 1, it says, in the first month of the year, the whole community of Israel arrived in the wilderness of Zin and camped at Kadesh. While they were there, Miriam died and was buried. Miriam is Moses and Aaron’s sister. Right. There was no water for the people to drink at that place, so they rebelled against Moses and Aaron. The people blamed Moses and said, if only we had died in the Lord’s presence with our brothers. Why have you brought the congregation of the Lord’s people in this wilderness to die along with all our livestock? Why did you make us leave Egypt and bring us here to this terrible place? This land has no grain, no figs, no grapes, no pomegranates, no water to drink. Moses and Aaron turned away from the people and went to the entrance of the tabernacle, where they fell down on the ground. Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord said to Moses, You and Aaron must take the staff and assemble the entire community. As the people watch, speak to the rock over there, and it will pour out its water, and you will provide enough water from the rock to satisfy the whole community and their livestock. So Moses did as he was told. He took the staff from the place where it was kept before the Lord. And then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. Listen, you rebels, he shouted. Must we bring you water from this rock? And then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff. Water gushed out. So the entire community and their livestock drank their fill. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you do not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people, you will not lead them into the land I’m giving them. This place was known as the waters of Meribah, which means arguing because they’re the people of Israel argued against the Lord and he demonstrated his holiness among them. So this is a second story, similar to a first story earlier that we didn’t read, where the first time God says, go out to the rock in the wilderness, and he says, strike it. The first time he tells them, strike the rock. When you strike the rock, water will come out. This time, God says, go out and speak to the rock. Right? So there’s a difference between the two. There’s a picture God is building. Word pictures are really important for God. Visuals are extremely important to God. And Moses messes that up and it winds up costing him. But anyways…

Chris:
Yeah. And so, yeah, that’s right. The first time he does ask him to strike the rock, this time to speak to it. And, you know, the funny thing about Moses and Aaron is that, think about the intricacies of God’s requests. You know, every detail matters to God. And he lays out, I mean, think about, remember back in the podcast when we were talking about building the tabernacle? Remember the detail of building the tabernacle? It was so, so unbelievably precise. And everything mattered to God. And yet Moses and Aaron did exactly what God said. And so this entire time, Moses, it’s not as if Moses simply made a mistake, because that’s what we have a tendency to think. We have a tendency to think, oh, Moses may have just forgotten because last time he struck the rock. But that’s not what happened here. Because Moses is used to understanding, you know, do exactly what God says. Because after all, this has been years, years and years of Moses fulfilling God’s request down to the nth degree. And so Moses knew exactly what he was doing. And the thing that sort of gives us an indicator that we know that is because Instead of speaking to the rock and letting God be glorified in His holiness, he says, listen you rebels, must we bring you water from this rock? Right. And so he’s taking credit. And so then he strikes it in a dramatic fashion as if, like, I have the power to, you know, bring water back. And by the way, you could argue and say that Moses was driven out of frustration. Yeah, he was. Wanting to stick it in the people’s faces. Right. I’ll show you, right? Once again, they’re grumbling. Once again, they’re complaining. Why couldn’t you have left us back to die with our brothers in the Red Sea? And it’s like, geez, can you complain any longer? And so there’s a part of me that relates to Moses. There’s a part of me that understands. But just because we have weak moments doesn’t mean we need to disobey God. Because when we disobey God, we have to realize there’s consequences for disobeying God.

Jeff:
So often, I just had a conversation with somebody here recently that was talking about, do you believe that when God forgives you that all the consequences are gone? And I said, no. Right. Right? Forgiveness just means God’s not going to send you to hell because of it. But man alive, if I spent my entire life drinking like a fish and then I get saved and God forgave my sins, God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been living that life like that. That doesn’t mean that I instantly have, you know, I can’t get mad. You have a right to get mad at God about cirrhosis of the liver. Right? right? There’s still consequences to our sin. And this is the issue there is that even though it seems a little harsh that God goes, Hey, you can’t go into the promised land now after all this time, there’s consequence to the fact that God had been so incredibly precise as you pointed out with Moses. And he messed up this picture. This was a picture of Jesus, the rock picture of Jesus. Jesus was only struck once, not twice. Right. And so, um, the, It was supposed to be a law of grace kind of a thing here. There’s so many different pictures and he ruined it. He messed it up. He struck the rock the second time, messed up this whole picture. So there’s a consequence. But listen to this. I think it’s interesting. The people are more frustrating to me even than God’s response to Moses. You gotta remember Moses is almost 120 years old now. He’s 117. So he was 40 years old when he killed the Egyptian. He was 80 years old when he met the burning bush and God led him to set the Israelites free. And now they’ve wandered for 37 years. up to this point. So he’s 117 years old. This guy’s ready to go to heaven anyways. God’s not being mean to 117 year old saying, you know what? It’s time to come to heaven. Right? So, but at this point he’s frustrated because it says, here’s the notes in Life Application Study Bible. After 37 years in the wilderness, the Israelites forgot that their wanderings were a result of their parents and their own sin. They could not accept the fact that they brought their own problems upon themselves, and so they blamed Moses for their condition. Often our troubles result from our own disobedience or lack of faith. We cannot blame God or others for our sins. Until we face this reality, we have little peace and no spiritual growth.

Chris:
That’s good.

Jeff:
Right, so after 37 years of watching their moms and dads and aunts and uncles die, there’s only a few of those people 40 years ago still alive, right? Right. So you think about how many, there was the old generation, there would have been the middle, you know, the mid-generation, there would have been the young adults, And for 37 years, they’ve wandered. So, you know, they’re dying off. It’s just a small percentage left that were there at that first point of sin. And even then, these people cannot remember. They cannot remember that all of this was brought on them by themselves. And you’re wandering and all those things. And that God was going to give them another chance. They couldn’t remember any of these things. They could not accept responsibility. And I’m telling you, the most miserable people I know, And the most stumbling through life, amazed how life keeps happening so poorly to them, people are the people who cannot accept responsibility for their circumstances. Instead, they’re blaming everybody else instead of accepting responsibility, right? And that’s what’s happening here. That’s what’s happening. You started laughing when I said, most miserable people I know.

Chris:
Yeah, you know, when you said the most miserable people I know, I thought of complaining Christians. And then that’s not where you’re going at all. Well, some of it. Yeah, some of it. Yeah, for sure. You know, we talked about yesterday how God struck immediately the 10 spies who disobeyed down, you know, and then here, you know, here’s God, you know, telling Moses, because of your disobedience here, Well, the only reason why Moses, why God doesn’t zap us today because of our sin, we just talked about this between the episodes, is because of Jesus. Right. Like, you know, so in other words, God still feels angry about our sin. Yeah. Right. So God’s attitude towards sin does not change. Right. It’s the same. And you know what’s so funny is when you get into some debates with people, they like to say, well, in the New Testament, it doesn’t mention this sin, you know, or in the New Testament, it doesn’t. Well, it wasn’t Jesus’s job to cover the gamut of sin, right? It wasn’t his job to like regurgitate the entire law of the Old Testament.

Jeff:
verbally, right?

Chris:
So it’s not as if God changes. In fact, the scripture actually says God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So the same God who zapped the 10 spies is the same God who looks at our sin. But the only reason why he doesn’t zap us, the only reason, is because of Jesus. So Jesus came as the fulfillment for all of our sin. He’s the only reason why God forgives us of our sin. And yes, it is true. Sometimes we have consequences because of our sin. And God does give us grace, and He gives us mercy, and He gives us all those things. But it does not mean that God feels differently about our sin than He used to feel. It’s just that His reactions toward our sin have been satisfied in the sacrifice of Jesus.

Jeff:
For the purpose of salvation. For the purpose of salvation, yeah. But if we, you know, choose to live in sin, we’re still going to suffer the consequences on earth. Yeah, I believe that. Of those sins, right? And so that’s the thing that then we want to blame other people. We want to blame this person or that person, or we blame the economy, we blame whatever as to why we had to do the things we do. And, you know, until we can accept responsibility for our own actions, it’s very difficult for us to find a way out of that. We’re always going to be miserable. We’re not going to grow spiritually. So anyways, that’s really kind of the crux of this entire passage is that the people just refuse. Now, the only ones left are Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb. And by the way, we did not talk about Aaron’s rod here, right? But previously Aaron’s rod had flowered as a proof, even though it was a dead rod, right? It was a walking stick. And God used that walking stick to flower as proof that God was still with Moses and Aaron. And so he says, hey, go get that and remind the people. Go get that, hold it up over the rock and speak to it. And so he was trying to use this priestly role and the fact that God’s presence had been with Moses and Aaron all along. And he was trying to remind them that God was with them. And the people were like, no, right. And they’re mad. They’re still mad. And it makes Moses mad. And in this, this moment of weakness, Moses strikes this rock and, um, uh, changed everything for him. So he winds up, he gets to see it when you, when you read right after this, Aaron dies. And then, uh, God sends another plague, which is crazy that the next plague is the, is the serpents that come through the wilderness and bite all the people. Yes. And then have you ever seen our medical symbol that we have for medical symbol is a rod with a snake around it and it’s got the wings right on it. God had told Moses design this symbol as a symbol of healing, right? Later on, that comes up in John chapter three, where Jesus says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. Are we not going to read that? We’re not reading that. What? It doesn’t come up. Yeah.

Chris:
Are you kidding me? Yeah. How could we not read that?

Jeff:
Numbers 22 is where we jump to next. Wow. Which is a good one. I’m sad. That’s a good one. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And so that’s why I wanted to just kind of highlight that or mention it, that these passages here, you’re not required to only read what we’ve read. We’re going to go ahead, and we should have said this earlier, give you carte blanche. You’re allowed to read all the rest of the Bible if you want to. That’s right. Even the parts we didn’t read, it’s okay for you to read it. And if you have a good life application study of the Bible, you can track along pretty well, get some good training on that.

Chris:
That’s good. Well, hey, that’s just about our time. And that was a great passage. And so hopefully we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.