Numbers 13:25-14:4 Year End Sermon

NUMBERS 13: -14:4
Theme: The Foolishness of Wrong Thinking

Introduction:

Before we read the text, I want explain why I have chosen this theme: “The Foolishness of Wrong Thinking” or the “Folly of False Thinking”. Let me tell you about a man named Nick. Nick worked for the railroad. He was a big man who worked hard, he was always reliable and well liked by his employer and co-workers.

But Nick had a problem: Nick was an extreme pessimist and anyone who got around him quickly became acquainted with his critical spirit. Sometimes it would rub off onto others. Nick was always worrying about something- usually multiple things. By the end of a coffee break, Nick could have everybody convinced of the inevitability of the worst case scenario. That’s the kind of guy he was.

One summer Nick had stayed late to work on a refrigerated boxcar and accidentally locked himself in with no one around to hear him frantically pounding on the car door to let him out.

Knowing it was a refrigerated boxcar caused Nick to panic because he knew that the below freezing temperature would soon kill him. He yelled and pounded for hours but no one could hear him. The more he worried about his dire circumstances, the more frantic and the colder he became. Finally, with bleeding fists, Nick gave up and began to prepare for the worst.

He found an old piece of cardboard and in the darkness began to write what would be his dying thoughts to his family. Shivering uncontrollably, he wrote about the cold and how his body was beginning to stiffen.
“Getting cold,’ he wrote, “What am I going to do? If I don’t get out of here, I will freeze to death.”

The next morning Nick’s lifeless body was found by his coworkers. An autopsy confirmed that Nick had frozen to death. But when investigators examined the car that Nick died in they found that the refrigerator was not even working- it had been broken for some time. The temperature the night Nick froze to death was well over 15 degrees Celsius. Nick froze to death in cool summer temperatures that were not cold enough to kill anyone. He died because he believed he was freezing to death. His death became a self fulfilling prophecy. But it was his pessimism that finally killed him.

I think that can be true for anyone. Their own negativity can be their worst enemy. If you don’t believe me, ask a salesman if he believes going into a cold call with the assumption you will make the sale is more effective than assuming that you will fail. Or ask a singer if doubting her singing ability on the day of an important audition will affect her singing ability. Ask a tight wire walker if he thinks about falling while he’s walking the tight wire and I am sure you will get an emphatic “No!” In fact, I bet the only thing he thinks about is his destination at the other end of the rope.



Text
Let’s look at our text this morning. Israel is preparing to enter the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. God has brought them out of slavery, He’s parted the Red sea; He’s provided manna in the wilderness and given them the Law as well as other miracles and judgments. There is no reason to doubt the power of God to supply all Israel’s needs and bring them into the land He promised their fathers (just as there is no reason for any Christian to doubt God’s ability to supply all their needs).

Nevertheless, they decided to send spies into the land. From a strategic planning point of view, this was a great idea. Moses said to them in 13:17,
“Go up this way into the South, and go up to the mountains, 18 and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; 19 whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; 20 whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not. Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land.”

Unfortunately, ten of the spies were a bunch of Hebrew Nicks. Moses already had the promises of God that he would bring them into a land that flowed with milk and honey, but for some reason, he chose to put his fate and the fate of the people of God into the hands of men who did not have faith to believe God but allowed their circumstances and fear to determine their perception of reality. Read 13:25-14:4

True Happiness
I overheard a couple of men the other day talking about their Christian faith and I was really impressed because they looked like they had come out of some pretty tough lives. The older man was sharing his testimony and I decided to listen in. At first I hoped others were also listening in until he made this statement and my heart broke- I looked around hoping no one else heard him. He said, “I came to a point in my life when I decided I don’t need to be happy, I just want Christ.”

Now that sounds good and stoic and self-denying on the surface; and it’s a probably a reaction to some presentations of the gospel in which believing the gospel is presented as a means to finding happiness.

But the problem is not with the word happiness; the problem is with what happiness looks like in the mind of the unbeliever. When you tell an unbeliever that believing the gospel will make him happy, he thinks of material and sensual happiness- the gospel as a means to the American dream.

Now, material and sensual happiness are the wrong reasons for becoming a Christian; but happiness is not. In fact, believing in Jesus Christ is true happiness. So why do some Christians make this contrast between Christ and happiness as though happiness is the opposite of living in Christ?

False Dichotomies
Christians have always been prone to the error of unnecessary dichotomies. We want everything to be black and white in the Kingdom of God so whenever there is a reaction to some heresy, it is usually an over reaction and we end up over correcting and creating a whole new heresy.


You see it in the Corinthian church in the first century. Because of their heretical view of the body and their misunderstanding of the resurrection, certain Christians who considered themselves “Spiritual” were indulging in all sorts of sexual sin and gluttony. And so, in response to their error, another group of Christians began to create all sorts of rules denying their spouses sexual relations, preventing young people from marrying and abstaining from certain meat.

I think another error that has crept into the church and resulted in an overcorrection has been the health and wealth gospel. It’s the teaching that true Christians can determine their health and wealth by faith in their positive thinking ability.

And an objective look at scripture will confirm that there are some places where we can see that healing and health and prosperity are promised in the scriptures. But what is ignored by the prosperity teachers is that suffering and sharing in Christ’s afflictions and persecutions are also promised.

And so we hear the teachings of the prosperity gospel and (as the church has always done) we overcorrect. We trump out all our explicit texts that promise suffering and surround ourselves with all the literature and teaching that denounces this movement and we become so single minded in our attempt to disprove the heresy that we ignore altogether the texts that actually talk about joy, happiness, health and prosperity for the believer.

I know this is true because I hear your testimonies and every time there is a healing (even if it is the result of medical treatment), or an unexpected financial gain or a job promotion, you (rightfully) attribute it to God- isn’t that a form of prosperity gospel after the fact? But it’s true: if your lot in life improved God did it! Right? And why wouldn’t He? You’re his child- and a good father cares for his children and provides for them according to their needs, sometime beyond what we can imagine. There’s no heresy in that statement- we all assume it.

But, just so we don’t get accused of being prosperity teachers, we become so focused on suffering and persecution that it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. How many here has had something bad happen to you in the past year and don’t see it as a consequence of bad thinking that led to bad behaviour? (Of course exceptions exist- but I am still sure we can all think at least one example of a consequence of our own negativity causing us to fail or to suffer).

Maybe you tell yourself, “Nothing good ever happens to me because I am a Christian and Christians are supposed to suffer.” So when something good happens you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop and something bad to come and counterbalance the good and you rob God of His providence and goodness and his ability to delight in his child without afflicting them. That’s not the God of the Bible- it’s a superstition from some other religion.

We become so focused on at least appearing and sounding like we are suffering as though it were a magic charm to ward off suffering.


When something good happens to us, we play it down. We’re like those horses that the little girl once told her mother must be Christians. When her mother asked her why the horses looked like Christians, the little girl replied, “Because they have such long faces.”

Christians should be the most joyful, comforted, satisfied, and happy and healthy (even when diseased we are better off than unbelievers with the same illness) people on the face of the earth. But I think those of us who oppose (Rightfully) the teachings of the prosperity gospel risk becoming like that man I overheard, assuming that happiness and antithetical to true Christianity.

Grasshoppers Thinking
So we begin to behave like those Jews on the edge of the Promised Land: We have all the promises of God but in our thinking we are like grasshoppers. Our own unbalanced theology prevents us from fully experiencing the life of victory that Christ has purchased for us. We remain in Paran (which means perched) because we are perched, ready to enter the land, but our own thinking, our own bad theology, our own patterns of behaviour that we fallen back on since childhood prevent us from entering in to the good that God has prepared for us.

The Bible is full of examples and explicit promises from God of good and comfort and even prosperity. There is the example of Abraham the simple shepherd who became the richest man on the earth. There is the example of Joseph the slave and prison inmate who became ruler over Egypt. There is the example of David the youngest and least son of Jesse who became the King of Israel. There is the example of Daniel, the captive who became the second most powerful man over the greatest empire that has ever ruled from India to Egypt.
The Bible says
Joshua wrote these words before bringing the Israelites into the Promised Land:
8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

David wrote this in Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

Jeremiah records God’s promise to the captives of Babylon,

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jesus said,

28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Paul reminded the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 9 that when they give,

You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

And in 1 Corinthians 15,
57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

John wrote about his hope for the church,

2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

Paul told the Romans,

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…. …in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Conclusion
So here is the application from the example of Israel perched on the edge of the Promised Land. They were full of the promises of God and the examples of his miracle working power that brought them out of slavery but nevertheless fearful and full of self-doubt because there were giants in the land. They were born slaves and they wanted nothing more in life than to return to their slavery.

We are also perched…. Not just perched on the edge of a new year, but also a new decade. 2010 is a new beginning. Or at least it can be. You have the promises of God. You have examples of Him not only working miracles in the history of the Jews, but in your own life. Looking back on 2009 you can see that God was at work. The question is, are you gonna stay here perched, with a grasshopper self image that wants to return to the slavery of your past behaviour and self-fulfilling prophecies until eventually you freeze to death in summer heat?

Or are you going to trust God that 2010 is one those “all things” that God is going to work together for good?

I want us to mark our response this morning by a show of decision….