Two responses – one call

But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it."

Numbers 13:30

 

This is an amazing chapter. It is a turning point for a generation. Moses appointed representatives from the tribes of Israel to spy out the land of Canaan in preparation for taking possession of what God had promised. Joshua and Caleb came back with their faith strengthened, ready to let God lead them. Ten spies did not have that faith response. All twelve had been given the same orders, went on the same mission, and had the same experiences. Only two of them had a response of trust in God and commitment to the call.

 

How is it that so many leaders could have totally opposite responses to God’s call? It wasn’t like God gave them a choice. Their orders were to find out information so that Israel could take possession of the Promised Land. But by the end of their mission, they ceased seeing themselves as fact-finders and instead became advisors and policy-makers for the nation. Their mission warped into their own “shadow mission” – a corruption of their skills, orders, and calling. Lack of faith caused them to take control of the “outcome”. They would not fight what they saw as an unbeatable foe. And God was not in the equation as they talked about their options.

 

Caleb’s response was the right one - in direct opposition to the fearful cowardice of the faithless majority who now had switched to fulfilling their shadow mission. I just love it that he spoke up first, loudly and boldly! He was ready to do what God asked. He knew that victory would come despite the odds because God was bigger and stronger than any earthly army. The Canaanites did not know Israel’s God. That was the power for winning! His faith should have been how all of Israel followed the report. But it wasn’t. The majority report of doom and unbelief (Numbers 13:31-32) would eventually win the hearts and minds of the nation.

 

Even today these two wildly different responses can follow God’s call. We can run forward in faith, true to our mission as followers of Jesus. Or we can fall back, failing in fear – feeding the dark thoughts of our self-gratifying shadow mission. Which will it be for believers today? Our culture is equally intimidating. Canaanites are still giants. But God has given us a call… to change lives and be the church in a world that is radically opposed to the gospel. And faith will see us through to receive what God wants to give us!

 

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God is the best defense

Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

Numbers 12:7-8

 

Jealous of their brother’s leadership and evidently prejudiced against Moses’ gentile wife, Miriam and Aaron turn against him and unwittingly turn against God in their complaints. At issue is the spiritual leadership that God gave to Moses. Miriam had prophesied after the Red Sea crossing (see Exodus 15:20) and Aaron served as High Priest. Their challenge to Moses assumes that they were spiritually his equal and better qualified to lead Israel then their “gentile-loving” brother.

 

The pretense for their claim to authority is an incipient bit of racism. They speak against the “Cushite” wife of Moses. Elsewhere she is said to be Midianite. Some old commentators among the rabbis suggest that Midia and Cush shared a porous border, potentially making Zipporah’s ancestry Ethiopian, perhaps even black African. Perhaps because of emerging Jewish identity through the new commitment to the Law at Sinai, Moses’ family resented these close gentile connections in their brother. God certainly had not said anything bad about this, in fact, Moses was already married to a gentile when God chose him to be the leader of the Exodus generation. It was the evil hearts of Aaron and Miriam that did not like the situation.

 

God quickly defended Moses as leader and as clearly His choice for the job. Miriam was struck with advanced leprosy, making her truly unclean, worse than the “gentile” she despised. Gentiles could enter the outer courts of the tabernacle. Lepers could not. The punishment fell upon her 1) perhaps because she led the complaining and accusations in the revolt, and 2) because Aaron was the High Priest, God sovereignly and mercifully spared the nation the trauma of an unclean priest forcing the appointment of a new High Priest.

 

Moses meekly let God be His defense. By pleading for Miriam’s healing, he proved to his family and a watching nation that his closeness to God’s heart was the strength of his leadership. Miriam was healed after a week-long exile from the camp. Aaron was spared by God’s mercy. And God used the incident to strengthen the leadership of Moses among an increasingly difficult nation.

 

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