I want to read two verses in
Acts chapter 7, verses 37 and 38. This is that Moses which said
unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your
God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me, him shall
ye hear. This is he that was in the church
in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount
Sinai, and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to
give unto us." The church in the wilderness. Turn over to
Numbers chapter 21. Now, the children of Israel,
the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the children of these
twelve patriarchs, These tribes were the church. We can say they
were a type of the church, but really they weren't just a type.
They were the church in the wilderness. Stephen said they were the church. This was the church of old. They
were good examples to us of what not to do and sometimes what
to do. But they were the church. When
the Lord delivered them out of Egypt, he delivered them by blood,
he delivered them by power. That's when they came out of
Egypt. At midnight, when the death angel passed through, he
saw the blood on the doorpost. And that's their last trial. They were delivered. They were
baptized into Moses and the Red Sea. Just as you and I are baptized
in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And
then they went out through the wilderness. And for 40 years
they wandered in the wilderness. They were tried and tested. And
finally, as a church, they came into the land of promise. And
you and I and the New Testament church are just like them and
the Old Testament church. We're the seed of Abraham too.
And we've been called out of bondage. We're delivered by blood. We're delivered by power. And
we're baptized into Christ. And we're here in this wilderness.
And we've been tested and tried. And someday, just like they did,
we'll enter the land of Canaan. The land of promise. The true
Canaan. But I'm telling you, their land of Canaan is a weak
type of heaven. A very weak type of heaven. They
never laid down their swords when they got to the land of
Canaan. They never sat down to rest. They had battles to fight.
But now, when a saint dies, and they live in the land of promise,
they rest. The battles are over, the swords
are laid down, the armor is taken off, and they enter into rest.
But this church in the wilderness is a good example to you and
I of the way the Lord dealt with them as a people, as a church. He often dealt with us. And we
see ourselves in these. 1 Corinthians 10 tells us that
they are indeed our examples. With that in mind, let us look
here in Numbers chapter 21. And look here, begin reading
in verse 4. And they journeyed. This is the
church in the wilderness being led by Moses. And they journeyed
from Mount Hora by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land
of Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged because
of the way." Now, this is our first point, and I want us to
see this this evening, that the church, these people, the visible
church, and I know there were many in the church, just like
there is now, in the visible church that don't know the Lord. And it was so in this church.
But we can see ourselves in their attitude. And the first thing
that we're told about them here is they got discouraged. They
got discouraged. And I want you to look at several
reasons why. The first reason that I imagine
they got discouraged, in chapter 20, they had lost two people
to death. In verse 1 of chapter 20, they
lost Mariam. Remember Mariam? Moses' sister,
Aaron's sister. Remember what an example she
was, what a blessing she was, especially to the women of this
congregation. She was the one that led out
the women to saying, the Lord has triumphed gloriously. The
horse and his rider have they thrown into the sea? What an
example she was. What a help and encouragement
she was to this congregation. Can you imagine the times that
she encouraged and taught the ladies how to be a better wife
to their husband? How to keep the house, the tent.
When trouble arises, they always say, go to Mary. Go ask Mary. Have you ever had anybody like
that? We have, haven't we? Some dear old sister that, boy,
she was so wise. I mean, she was just like a pillar
in the church. And we lost her. And we lost
her. I reckon that's one of the reasons
that they were discouraged. And the last chapter, the last
verse in this chapter 20, they not only lost Miriam, but they
lost Aaron. Aaron died. And here we're told
in verse 29, that all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, and
they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel. You and I don't experience this
very much, but we're getting older. You and I are getting
older, aren't we? And I'll tell you what we're
beginning to experience more and more. We're losing people. that was such an example to us.
We're losing some good preachers. And I tell you what, in a way
it's sad, isn't it? There's churches now that have
no pastors because their pastors have died. Their pastors have
gotten old and haven't stepped down. It's tough, ain't it? It's tough when you're losing
your preachers. Here Aaron was the only priest these people
had known. They had taken their sacrifices to Him for 40 years. And now He's gone. Heaven's gone. And boy, it's tough. It's tough.
They got discouraged. But there's something else here
in the 20th chapter that may have discouraged these people.
And you begin to read it there in verse 14. They needed to pass through the
land of Edom. Edom was Esau's relatives. The two brothers, Jacob and Esau,
Edom. And Esau's family, his descendants
had settled here in this plot of land. And Israel was there
wanting to pass through the land. And they sent a letter, Moses
sent a letter to them and said, Dear brother, dear brother, He
was their brother after the flash. Let us pass through the land.
And boy, they sent a mean letter back and said, you better not
take one step on our land. And Moses wrote him another letter
and said, we won't drink any of the water. If we do, we'll
pay for it. We won't let our cattle graze in your pastures.
And they brought a whole army out against Israel and said,
you try to come through here, you're going to fight us. Could
that have been something that discouraged these people? Have
you ever loved somebody and you did good to them, but how they
treated you in return discourages you? Have you ever loved somebody
that just didn't love you back when they should have? That's
happened to us, ain't it? And man, you talk about discouraging
you sometimes. That can discourage you. That
happened to our Master, didn't it? Judas came and betrayed Him
with a kiss. Betrayed the Son of Man with
a kiss. Oh, my familiar friend, that I've been so good to you,
you betrayed me with a great kiss. But there's something else
about this, and we're told also this in chapter 20, and in verse
5. Man, this was a rough place where
they were. This was a wilderness. And they
had complained about this before in verse 5 of chapter 20. Look
at this. And wherefore have you made us
to come up out of Egypt, to bring us unto this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of
figs, or of vines, or of poppy grains, neither is there any
water to drink." This was a barren place. Turn to talk about the
seed, sowing the seed. With no seed sown here, none
of them would grow. Well, I tell you, I don't know
of anything more discouraging sometimes, brothers and sisters,
than when you see such little fruit for your labors. Do you
ever feel that way? I mean, you've testified to somebody,
you've given messages, you've prayed for them, and nothing,
nothing. And you almost feel like I'm
laboring in vain. Did you ever feel that way? You
don't. It's impossible to labor in vain
if you labor for His glory. But sometimes you get discouraged
when you see so little fruit of your ministry. And fourthly, there's something
else that may have discouraged these people, and that's this.
Delayed blessings. Delayed blessings. If you study
where these people were, They were right on the border
of the promised land. They were in the northern part
of Egypt, this place called Edom. And if the Edomites had let them
go through their land, just a few short hours, just a few hours,
about 30 miles, they would have been in the land of promise,
in the land of Canaan. But they said no. They said no. And man, they wanted the land
of Canaan so bad. I mean, they could almost smell
it. You could get on the mountains and see it from here. No, you're
not going there today. Boy, that would be discouraging,
wouldn't it? They couldn't enter. They couldn't
enter. I had a dear old friend of mine,
still have an old, old friend of mine, two friends, two dear
old friends. And one of them told me one day,
he said, he said, I long to go be with the Lord. And he said,
what I want to do, and I've been longing to do it, is go to sleep
in this world and wake up in that world above. Go to sleep
and wake up with the Savior. And I got a letter from him not
long ago, and he's so disappointed. He's so disappointed. He wanted
to go on. Boy, that'd be a disappointment,
wouldn't it? Just having to be patient. You feel so useless,
your life's basically over with, and yet the blessing is delayed. And fifthly, this may have discouraged
them, just when they thought the way was going to get easier,
it got more difficult. We're told here in verse 4 that
I read to you, they journeyed from the Mount Horeb by the way
of the Red Sea. They went south. They were going
north towards the land of Canaan, and suddenly, suddenly, they
went backwards. They had to turn and go back
south to go all the way around in the southern part of Edom
and go up on the east coast to get to the land of Canaan. Just
when they thought, boy, we're almost there, the way's going
to get easier from here on out, they found the way to be tougher.
That had to be discouragement to them. I asked an old friend
of mine one time, Scott Richards, and I said, Brother Scott, he's
probably 80 years old when I asked you this, I said, does it get
any easier as you get older? Does the temptations get any
lighter? Does the affections, ah, he said,
they get rougher. They get worse. They get worse.
When you get old and you think things shouldn't be getting easier
now, and boy, you're facing severe trials, how many of God's children
in their old age have faced severe trials? Some of these people
here were getting old. Moses was old at this time. Of
course, he wasn't going in, but Joshua was going in and Caleb
was going in. And some of these other people
that had been here for 40 years in the wilderness, they were
just hoping. They were hoping. Man alive,
we're going to get over there. We're going to make it. Then
they had to go round to the south and had no idea what lay ahead
of them. Paul was an old man. Paul the
aged when they put him in prison. Noah was 450 years old when the
flood came. That's probably why he got drunk
after the flood, but I can't take this. I can't take this.
Jacob? Jacob was an old man when all
the afflictions came upon him. I tell you, age, just about the
time you think it's going to get easier, you may find it's
not that easy. And sometimes we can get discouraged. They were discouraged in the
way. The old songwriter said, sometimes
I feel discouraged. and think my life in vain. And that can happen. That can
happen. But here, I think they're an example to us, is when we
get to the point, for whatever reason, we begin to be discouraged,
we have to be so careful. Because discouragement always
leads to something else, if it's not checked. And what does it
lead to? Impatience. Impatience. I don't know what your margin
says here in verse 4, but the word here for discouraged, discouraged
is impatient. If it's not the same word, it's
very akin to it. When we get discouraged, we get
impatient. And when we get impatient, what
happens? Well, verse 5, look at it. And
the people spake against God and against Moses. We start complaining. We start complaining. We start
complaining about the weather. Why is it snowing? Why have we
got so much ice? Why am I sick? Why has the car
broke down? Why is this happening? Why is
that happening? What is the problem? Discouragement. And we let discouragement
breed this impatience. And then what happens? Unbelief. I'll tell you what unbelief will
do. Unbelief will make you look at the blessings of God and see
only curses in Him. You say, Bruce, I'll never be
there. Boy, the church in the wilderness
got you. They got there. Unbelief will cause you to misrepresent
God. and have Him so hard and cold
and indifferent? The God of love. Unbelief will
turn Him into a God of hate. They said here about the Lord,
Wherefore have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the
wilderness? Is that why the Lord brought
them here? Is that His purpose in bringing them here? Well,
no. That wasn't His purpose. He purposed
to bring them here to bring them into the land of Canaan, and
he did. As a church, he did. Not this
generation, but as a church, that's where he brought them. He didn't hate these people.
He didn't bring them here just to destroy them. Why would a
man think that? You know what the devil does
when he sees us get discouraged and impatient? You know what
he begins to whisper to us and say? God don't like you at all. As a matter of fact, He's turning
all these things against you. He's hiding these good things.
He's withholding blessings from you because He just don't love
you. He's against you. You ever had Satan whisper that
to you? That's what Satan told our first parents, wasn't it?
God's withholding this tree, this good fruit from you, because
He knows there's such a blessing in it. And if you'll just go
ahead and eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
you're going to be like God. But He don't want you like that,
you see. Unbelief. Unbelief. And I'll
tell you what else unbelief will do. He'll take all the blessings. Absolute blessings. That just
a day or two before, you remembered and rejoiced in, and He'll take
all those blessings and twist them and make you think God's
never blessed you a day in your Christian life. Look what they
said in verse 5. Wherefore have you brought us
up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread. There is no bread. They had angel's
food, did they not? Had he not fed them from heaven
for forty years? They had bread. I tell you, they
had the best bread imaginable. They had the best bread that
God could give them in the wilderness. And look at this, neither is
there any water. What we just told you in chapter
20, that Moses had just smote the rock, and that pure water
gushed out of the rock. Water so abundantly that it fed
not only them, but it quenched the thirst of all their cattle,
their animals. No water? Why may they say this? Unbelief. Unbelief. And they said, Our souls loathe
this light bread, this manna from heaven. We loathe it. What had happened? Well, it started
out with discouragement, impatience, and then just broke out into
awful unbelief. It's dangerous, brothers and
sisters, when we get this way. And I'll tell you why it's dangerous.
We spoil our children sometimes. And this is the way we spoil
them. They get to wanting something that's not good for them. And
they start whimpering and crying and follow us around tugging
on our breeches leg or skirts. And what do we finally do? We
give in, don't we? Even though it's not good for
them, we give in. And what do we teach them? We spoil them.
We teach them bad manners and a bad character. You know something? Our Father won't do us that way.
He just will not do it. He won't do it. He loves us too
much, doesn't He? They were discouraged in the
way. Why were they discouraged in
the way? This is the first thing you and I should think of when
we grow discouraged. Why are we discouraged in the
way? Did we put ourselves in the way?
Did they bring themselves out of Egypt? Were they leading themselves? Psalm 107 says, He led them in
the right way. Their way got difficult, but
it was the best way for them. The Lord dealt with them with
a rod sometimes, but that's what they needed. Ask yourself this
question the next time you get discouraged. What are you doing
in this way? Did you put yourself in it? No.
He's brought you here. And His rod may be heavy upon
your back, but it's still His way. Is it not? And I tell you,
it's the best way for you. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be
here. If there was a better way, your Father in Heaven would have
you in it. Now, ain't that so? There's no
reason for a child of God to ever be discouraged. Now, that's so. And sometimes when we won't correct
the discouragement and we become impatient and begin to murmur
and complain, He won't spoil us like His children, like we
do our children. He didn't do these Israelites
that way. Look what He did to them in verse
6. The Lord sent fiery serpents among them, among the people,
and they bit the people, and much people of Israel If we think
we're going to get something out of the Lord by complaining
and whimpering and being impatient, I tell you, He just doesn't deal
with us that way. He just doesn't do it. We just wind up having
to come and humble ourselves before Him and say, Lord, I've
got no reason to complain. You've been so gracious. You've
been so kind. Yes, the way is tough. Yes, I've
been mistreated. Yes, I've lost loved ones. Yes,
this and yes, that. Lord, but it's the way that you've
put me in. And I tell you, brothers and
sisters, if we don't do that, Jane said, humble yourself under
the hand of God, and He'll exalt you in due season. If we don't
do that, all of us have experienced this, haven't we? Boy, He lays
the rod on us heavy. And what happens when he lays
the rod upon us? There are some losses usually.
No chastening for the present seems to be joyous but grievous. How much joy has died in your
heart under his chastening? How much peace, how much rest,
how much assurance have you lost under the chastening hand of
God? Before he sent these serpents and people started dying, they
began to die. He's not like us, is he? He loves
us too much to spoil us. And look what happened in verse
7. Here's the remedy for these people. Therefore the people
came to Moses and said, We have sinned. And look what they did. I know when you and I come to
public prayer, we just say, Lord, forgive us of our sins, don't
we? That's the way we pray publicly.
But brothers and sisters, don't do that in private. Get more
specific than that. It's dangerous just to always
be saying, if I've sinned. If you've not sinned, don't confess
it. But if you sin, confess the sin. Get particular about it. What have you done? That's what
they did. You look at this. We have sinned. And go on about their way. No,
look. We have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Boy, they just confessed it.
Lord, here's exactly what I've done. There's a big difference. And the way we should confess,
as sometimes opposed to the way we do confess. We have sinned. We have sinned. What have we done? Tell Him. Spend some time telling Him.
Lord, I've been lusting. I've been thinking about something
way too long. In my mind, I've been thinking
about this. I've been doing this thing, I've
been doing that thing. Confess it to him for what you've
done. That's good. That's good to do that. Sometimes
he'll wring it out of us. If we confess our sins, he's
faithful and just. Not if we just confess, if we
confess our sins. He that covereth his sins shall
not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall
have You ever do anything that needs to be confessed? Then confess
what you've done wrong. Confess it. And notice who they
went to. Notice who they went to. They
came to Moses. Why did they go to Moses? He
was the mediator, wasn't he? Oh, they knew this Moses. They
knew him very well. And they knew that God knew him
well, too. This was God's friend. God said,
I've spoken to this man face to face. I know this Moses. And how many times did Moses
go up to plead with God for these people? And the only reason these
people were brought off from their sin and condemnation is
because Moses stood in the gap and made up the hedge. Do we have anybody like that,
that God knows face-to-face? We don't need to go down here
to St. Mary's and get in their little confessional booths and
confess to somebody that's no better than we are. We've got
somebody that God knows face-to-face, that knows how to plead with
God on our behalf, and is willing to do it. Somebody that God has
chosen and set Him there. Go to Jesus Christ, the mediator,
the advocate between God and man, and confess it to Him. Oh, we've sinned. We have spoken
against the Lord and against Thee. Pray, pray unto the Lord
that He may take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for
the people. If I hadn't seen myself here
so many times, I wouldn't be preaching this to you. I am telling
you, my soul, my heart, sometimes has been so discouraged. I thought
my life, my labor was in vain. I began then to murmur and on
my lot complain. And then what happens? Oh, the
rod comes. And then what happens? A thorough
confession is brought out of my heart. And I go to God again
through Christ and say, Oh, Lord Jesus, plead my cause. Plead my cause. I've done this
and I've done that. Oh, I'm such a wretched man.
Pray to God for me. And in verse 8, look at this.
Now, it's strange, and maybe you've never noticed this before,
but here is where the serpent was lifted up. And the Lord said
unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole,
and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when
he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass,
and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent
had bitten any man, would he beheld the serpent of brass?
Ain't this an amazing thing? You would have thought for sure
that the Lord would have put this serpent on a pole 40 years
before this. They had been out here in the
wilderness for 40 years. Their wilderness journey was
almost over with. Just a little while after this,
Moses died and they entered the land of Canaan. And here's where
we find this serpent up on a pole at almost the end of their journey.
Just before they entered the land of promise. Ain't that amazing? You know when you'll meet Christ? When you're almost at the end
of your journey. They needed the blood on the
doorpost back there when they got on the way. That delivered
them from the wrath of God. And they come here and wandered
in the land of this wilderness for 40 years. What do they need
now? A serpent upon a pole. Christ
crucified. Oh, brothers and sisters, I tell
you, we need Him all the time. We need Him at the beginning
of our way. We need Him in the middle of our journey. And I
tell you, when we lay our dying heads on our pillows, We're going
to need Him still. Look unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith, the church and the wilderness. God bless this Word. Let's pray.