The History of Today

Posted on July 5, 2020

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Numbers 13:26-33

Psalm 145:8-14

Numbers 14

Back in grade school I felt that history was one of the most boring subjects that we learned. I think part of it was because we spent the majority of our time trying to memorize dates and specific events. However, it wasn’t until after high school and taking a history class in college that I began to enjoy history. The reason for this was because the professor that I had taught us to focus more on the why of history instead of the what and when. The what and when is just touches the surface while the why goes deeper in to history and helps us to learn how to think by learning how others thought in the past and learning from the mistakes that they made. It helps us to make better choices for our future as history can sometimes be a snap shot of what the future may hold based on the principles from past events. One of the greatest books of history ever written is the Holy Bible. It is also one of the most accurately written books as well as we have thousands of copies of manuscripts dating very close to the time of which the events took place.

The first 5 books of the Bible are the recorded history of the world in how it came to be and of how we are where we are at today. It explains creation, the fall, and the promise for redemption. It also reveals to us the loving character of our God, our creator. I happened to be reviewing one of these books of history this week and I could not help but notice some similarities of what was going on during that time and what is going on in our nation at this moment.

So first let us set the stage for what has been going on to lead up to the story of events that our scripture readings are telling us today. The Israelites have been enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years and through a series of events and miracles, God sends the Israelites a leader to help lead them out of their slavery. Not only do the leave from their bondage but they plunder the Egyptians of their riches. The Egyptians just give them all kinds of gold, silver, and jewelry and essentially tell them to take it and go away as they have had enough after these plagues that they experienced. God leads the Israelites to the Red Sea to rest and set camp when the Egyptians change their mind and run after them to destroy them and bring many of them back. God protects them by sending a pillar of fire as a wall between the Egyptians and the Israelites and then separates the waters of the sea so that the Israelites can cross the sea on dry land and then God causes the sea to fall back onto the Egyptians. This was an amazing miracle and it was a series or events and news that traveled across the middle eastern world.

God leads them as a pillar of cloud by day that sheltered them from the desert sun and by a pillar of fire at night to give them light and protection. When they were hungry, he provided them welfare food. He sent bread directly from heaven in the form of manna and then sent welfare meat in the form of quail. When they were thirsty, he sent them water from a rock. God provided for them absolutely everything that they needed and he led them to the border of the promised land. All of this leads up to the scene we are currently visiting this morning. God commands Moses to send out one man from each tribe to go into the promised land to spies and get an idea of those whom they would have to fight and to bring back some of the fruit and production of the land. 12 men go out and then 12 men come back to report on what they have seen. All 12 spies are in agreement that the land is very fruitful just as God had promised it would be. However, only 2 of the spies believe that they can conquer this land while the other 10 claimed that it could not be done.

The 10 spies begin to spread fake news and lies to the whole community causing fear, despair, and chaos in the entire camp. They said that the people there were giants and that the land devours all who enter it. The people believed the fake news and began to weep and fall into anxiety and fear. Joshua and Caleb tried to give them the truth that God would be with them and that it was all possible however, the other 10 riled the crowd up and they had plans to stone Joshua and Caleb to stop them from giving the real news. They even put together a committee to discuss impeaching Moses and Aaron, and then putting another leader into power to lead them back into their bondage from Egypt. Does any of this sound just a little bit familiar to what we have going on in our country today?

After the people decide to rebel God had it in his mind to wipe them out and start over with Moses and Aaron however, Moses calms God down and pleads for forgiveness. God in his mercy decides to give them people what they requested. They said it would be better for them to die in the wilderness instead of working and fighting to take the land that was promised. They claimed that their wives and children would be taken from them as slaves. I think they expected everything to be easy just as it was up until now. They may have gotten to used to the welfare food and care that they were receiving that the idea of having to actually do some work did not seem to appealing. Well again God in his mercy grants them there wish and he decides that this rebellious nation will die in the wilderness and the next generation will be the ones to enter the promised land. This is now the only option that God is giving the Israelites.

In the mean time these 10 spies are still spreading their fake news and they are finally struck dead from a plague. The only spies who survived were Joshua and Caleb. Moses reported everything that God said and reported the deaths of these 10 spies who were spreading the fake news. The people mourned bitterly for what had happened. The next day they things are different. It is like they get a good night’s sleep; they are refreshed, they fill up on their welfare food and they are ready to conquer the world. They realize that they have sinned and they decide that now they are ready to go take the promised land. Moses warns them no to do this as God would not be with them. It was already too late; they had their chance and now that chance was over. The people decide to go anyway and they receive the one of the very first recorded beat downs in the Bible. The scripture literally says, that the Amalekites came down, attacked them, and beat them down all the way to Hormah. Total beat down here. This is because it really was too late. God had decided their punishment and they couldn’t even accept their consequences the way that they were supposed to. Despite all of this rebelliousness, all of the complaining, and all of the lack of belief, God still provided for these people and continued to send them their welfare so that they would survive to bring forth the next generation that would finally take the promised land as there predecessors should have done obediently and faithfully in the first place.

There are lessons that I think we can take from all this history that we read today. Number one we need to be careful about what news we are listening to. There are many in our world today who will try to relabel opinions as facts. Unfortunately, there are many trying to spread these lies and opinions to spread chaos and fear to distract us from the truth and keep us from what God has planned for us. The Corona virus is not something that we should fear. What we really should fear is that many are dying in this world without knowing Jesus as their Lord and savior. The second this we must understand is that God has ordained all authority and leadership and we should respect and honor those who are in authority. This includes our police officers, our president, vice president, and other elected officials. We should be praying for such people that they lead well and lead under the guidance of our Lord. We should be doing this instead of spending our time to incriminate or remove them from office. When we waist our time with such things we just hold back our progress from what the Lord wants for us. The final and most important lesson that we should take from the history we read to day is that there is such a thing as too late or out of time. The lives of our bodies in this world are finite. There will be a day when it is too late. Jesus spoke many parables about this when he was trying to described his return and the end of the age. The same is true with our country and the decision that we will make. There will be such a thing as too late. The good news is that the time of too late has yet to come upon us in our nation.

There is still hope and a chance to change the pathway of this nation. Though we continually allow many of our freedoms to slowly be taken from us we are still living in the freest nation on earth. It is not too late for us to continue into the promised land. However, we must decide whether we are going to listen to the fake news or if we are going to listen to the truth that comes from the mouth of God. There will be a day in which it will be too late for everyone if they have not decided to give their life to Christ when Christ returns or when their time of life has run out on this earth. However, as of today it is not too late to change your path in history and turn your life over to him today. This is the history of today.