Numbers 12

Numbers 12
Theme: How to Kill a Revival with Gossip


Read Numbers 12

Numbers 12 comes on the heals of another great revival in Numbers 11 with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 70 elders. But that revival did not come because the people of God were crying out for it; it came as a result of the unwillingness of the people to accept the providence of God and submit to the leadership of Moses. Look at how it began in Numbers 11:1-3:
Now when the people complained, it displeased the LORD; for the LORD heard it, and His anger was aroused. [Notice there is a direct connection between their negative talk and the arousing God’s anger?]. So the fire of the LORD burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. 2 Then the people cried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed to the LORD, the fire was quenched. 3So he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the LORD had burned among them.

And you would think after that the people would exercise a little fear and restraint in their petty complaints, but they continued to criticize God in v. 4, this time it was the food that displeased them:
4Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat? 5We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; 6but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!” (vv. 4-6).

Notice what really motivated them was their stomachs. They were carnally minded and the mind that is set on the flesh is unable to discern the things of the spirit. God hates it when His people backbite and complain against Him.

Beginning in v. 16, God’s solution is twofold: first, he promised to supply Moses with a spirit filled group of elders. When the people began to backslide against God, God’s solution is to raise up godly leadership and I am glad that God is raising up godly men in our church who are filled with the Spirit and knowledge of the Word of God and able to discern the spiritual things of God and keep us from backsliding!

The second thing God promised was to give the people exactly what they were asking for:
Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. 19 You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, 20 but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the LORD who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, “Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?” ’” (vv. 18b-20).

God often gives people over to their lusts. We saw that a couple weeks ago in first Samuel when the people cried out for a King- they got Saul. We see ultimately described in Romans 1:28ff:
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (1:28-32).

Keep that passage in mind as you consider our theme this morning (gossip)- notice v. 32 that they knew what God had decreed and yet they disobeyed Him any way? He’s not describing pagan’s here- he’s describing professing believers. Isn’t that the ultimate act of rebellion- it’s worse than unbelief because these people actually knew what they were doing was an offense to God and they did it anyway and taught others to do it too!

Isn’t that exactly what Aaron and Miriam were doing by gossiping against Moses? “Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses….” In other words they attacked him and their weapon of choice was their mouth.

James 5:5-10 says,
…the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.
See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. ….[v. 8 -The tongue] is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

Let me read the same passage from the Message so that you get the enormity of the peril of gossip to your soul:
A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. 6 A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. 7This is scary: You can tame a tiger, 8 but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. 9 With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. 10 Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can’t go on.

We ought never to leave the presence of God where we have just praised Him for his mercy and grace and power and sung about our willingness to follow Him and then say “that was just a mask”, “Our Sunday best!”- this is who we really are without our mask- and then begin to speak abusively against someone or do violence to one who is made in the image of God. It reveals hypocrisy and unbelief. How can you truly praise God whom you cannot see, when all you do is speak evil against someone whom you can see is made in the image of God?

And listen to Miriam and Aaron’s complaint- It wasn’t about the fact that he had once murdered someone, or that he had actually tried to flee the will of God and had tried to get out of leading Israel because he said he was a poor speaker- it was about Moses’ choice for a wife. That’s gossip! Gossip is all about bringing a bad report against someone in order to assassinate their character and reputation. In this case they were flinging mud at Moses because he married an Ethiopian woman. And it’s not necessarily that Gossip is lying either- It can be true. It’s the intent of the heart and the way that truth is used that makes it a sin!

It means bringing a bad report against someone. Like when the spies returned from the land of Canaan and reported that the land was crawling with giants. It’s not that it wasn’t true; the problem was their motive in making the report the way that they did: to discourage. Do you ever hear yourself doing that in the church? God hates that!

Israel’s Gossip will eventually prevent them from entering the promised land Just as it will keep this church from experiencing God in revival.

I can’t count the number of times I have heard criticism over the repair of the roof. Sure I made mistakes. I’m a pastor, not a roofer! Do you think that I spent the best part of last summer- the entire month of August without a day off, sometimes from 3:00 am to 10:00 pm (I think Gerda was ready to leave me at one point), replacing that poorly designed roof with little knowledge of how to do it because I had some ill motive? Because I wanted to destroy this church? Do you think I planned the coldest wettest August in memory just to cause the roof repairs to go sideways out of personal ambition or for ill gain?

Let me tell you the truth, the church could not have afforded the debt to repair it professionally (and little did we know that the world was on the eve of the worst financial crisis in a generation- the bank might not have even given us the money). Secondly, repairing the roof is not rocket science. Yes, it we had setbacks because of the rain, is that any reason to criticise me? Have no one here ever set out to do something good for God and had it go sideways only to have Christian use it as evidence of your incompetence and constantly remind you of your failure?

I was at Loughheed Mall last week with George and guess what: that beautiful, multi-million dollar facility built by the top engineers and tradesmen, has leaks all over the entry way in front of Starbucks and you have to walk around the buckets to get your latte! Recently there were buckets in the children’s shoes section of Walmart and across the street you will see a tarp over the roof of the house that was replaced by professional roofers two years ago- so much for their warranty.

But how about some positive- Yes, the building got wet, yes we may have to replace dry wall because of rain and I am deeply sorry for the discomfort that may have caused some of you. But how about the fact that we got the job done (and that was an answer to prayer) and with the exception of 1 leak right above the toilette in the women’s washroom which can be easily repaired- that roof held out through one of the coldest, snowiest and wettest winters in memory. And not only that, but we did it for half of what we were quoted by the professionals (and I’ve seen their work) and they might have encountered many of the same problems we did and there’s no guarantee that we would not have still had leeks (the original roof leaked all through the 90’s).

Back to our text, here is Israel, in the aftermath of a great revival in Numbers 11 with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the elders- what scholars call the Old Testament Pentecost and the outbreak of prophesy indicating the presence and activity of God among His people and all that Moses and Aaron can do is find fault with the fact Moses had married an Ethiopian women. How tragic for them. Some of you may not be aware that God is bringing a revival to our church…. It’s happening in prayer and in Bible study and personal devotions. Are you going to join what God is doing, or are you going to keep complaining?
Mirriam Webster defines a gossip as, “a person who habitually retails private, scandalous, or sensational and often inaccurate information”.

Once, a few summers ago, I witnessed a drunk drive weaving in and out of traffic over the Alex Fraser bridge. When we got to the other side, the man had caused and accident and so I gave my business card to the injured person and was later issued a subpoena to appear in court as a witness. It was summer, so at that time I was riding my bike to the office and someone (mistakenly) put 2 and 2 together (subpoena for DUI and no car) and contacted the denomination to inform them that I had had my drivers license suspended for Drinking and driving.

More recently, while I was in Thailand trying to set up a food program orphans and refugees, a rumor was circulating that I had stolen the money from the church (maybe some of you heard that rumor). The church doesn’t have that sort of money and if anyone still believes that, come and speak to me and I will show you the donation letter as well as a photocopy of the cheque.

Fortunately this is a minority and we have godly people in this church who have shown me great support and encouragement and they pray for me constantly- it is very humbling.

Paul describes a gossip as someone who has rejected the faith in 1 Timothy 5:13 and he adds, “…they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying [emailing] things which they ought not.”
Another name for gossip is tale bearing. Leviticus 19:16 says, “You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people….” God has spoken and he has decreed, “DON’T DO THAT!”

Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Rom 1:32).

Why do we gossip? And I mean we, because everyone in this room of guilty of gossiping. Why? Here are some reasons that came from the top of my head, maybe you can think of others:

1. Because it give us a sense of power. When I’m attacking someone with words who is not able to defend themselves, I have control and that feels good! By criticizing Moses over his choice of wife, it gave them a sense of power over him. And power is really what they were after.

2. Because it builds false bonds between people. It makes people feel like they have a real bond because they share their hatred for someone. I call it a pseudo relationship because the only thing holding it together is mutual hatred for someone else and as soon as that person is gone and forgotten the relationship almost always implodes into infighting unless another common enemy is found. Hitler used anti-Semitism to unite Germany under the godless Nazis.

3. Because it just feels good; we feel righteous when we pass judgment on other people. As long as we can make their sins seam bigger than ours we feel self-righteous. It’s really a matter of hiding our sins behind the sins of someone else, but what it really does is compound our own sinfulness and potentially disqualifies us from the grace of God.

4. Because Satan incites us to do it in order to divide the Body of Christ and diminish our witness. Satan is a liar, he’s the Father of lies and a murderer. When we spread lies about someone we are paying homage to Satan and contradicting God by saying his lies are not so bad.

Ray Ortland Jr says,
Adultery too is a serious sin, and one likely to be disciplined in a church. But I have never seen a church split over the sin of adultery. Gossip is a sin rarely disciplined but often more socially destructive than the sensational sins.

Let me leave you with some verses that talk about the perniciousness of gossip as well as a warning and then an application for us as church:
O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who does not take up a reproach against his friend. Psalm 15:1, 3

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him: . . .
one who sows discord among brothers. Proverbs 6:16, 19

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. James 4:11

Argue your case with your neighbor himself,
and do not reveal another’s secret. Proverbs 25:9

God gave them up to a debased mind . . . . They are gossips. Romans 1:28-29

So here’s the warning to all of us. Before we participate in Gossip or continue in it, remember what happened to Miriam as a result of her gossiping.
9 So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed. 10 And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper (vv. 9-10).

Gossip will rot your bones and destroy your body and possibly even your soul! It’s a poison that only tastes sweet like honey, but it will kill you, either slowly or quickly. Ray Ortland makes this dire assessment of the effects of Gossip:
It erodes trust and destroys morale. It creates a social environment of suspicion where everyone must wonder what is being said behind their backs and whether appearances of friendship are sincere. It ruins hard-won reputations with cowardly but effective weapons of misrepresentation. It manipulates people into taking sides when no such action is necessary or beneficial. It unleashes the dark powers of psychological transference, doing violence to the gossiper, to the one receiving the gossip and to the person being spoken against. It makes the Body of Christ look like the Body of Antichrist – destroyers rather than healers. It exhausts the energies we would otherwise devote to positive witness. It robs our Lord of the Church he deserves. It exposes the hostility in our hearts and discredits the gospel in the eyes of the world. Then we wonder why we don’t see more conversions, why “the ground is so hard.”

Application:

I believe everyone here is as outraged by gossip as I am. And if so, I want us to respond by three things. First if you want to put a stop to gossip in this church, then lets show our unity by taking a stand. I want everyone to signify their commitment to standing against gossip by rising to their feet as a testimony.

Second, in a few seconds we are going to pray and in that prayer we are going to repent for having disobeyed God by doing what He hates in gossiping.

And then third, we are going to enter into this covenant together:
“I will no longer allow Gossip to hurt myself, my fellowship Christian or this church because God hates it. I hereby covenant before God and this church that I will evaluate every conversation by asking myself, “These words about to rise up out of my mouth or go out through my keyboard – do they build up? Am I being constructive? If the person I feel like discussing were here with me right now, how would his presence change what I feel like saying?” And when I hear gossip, I will immediately challenge the sin and say to the person, “Hey friend, sorry to interrupt, but this is gossip. So here’s the deal. This conversation is now on hold until you go get the person you are talking about, and then you can start over and say whatever you feel you must say right to his face. I am willing to be a witness to that conversation, but I will not participate in gossip.