The Story 2024
Family Road Trip
February 11, 2024
Chris Seidman, Lead Minister, The Branch
Numbers 11:5 (NIV)
“We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost … .”
Numbers 11:10-12, 14-15 (NIV)
Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?
(vs. 14) “I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me – if I have found favor in your eyes – and do not let me face my own ruin.”
Numbers 14:1-4 (NIV)
That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?
“Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Numbers 14:10-11 (NIV)
But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?”
Numbers 14:28-30 (NIV)
“So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say: In this wilderness your bodies will fall – every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.’”
Hebrews 3:19 (NIV)
So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Numbers 14:11b (NIV)
“How long will they refuse to believe in me … .?”
Hebrews 3:7-10, 12 (NIV)
So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation … .
(vs.12) “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”
John 3:14-15 (NIV)
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
John 3:16 (NIV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Communion
If you’ve been in a wilderness before, what did God teach you?
If you are in a wilderness now, what are you praying for your own heart?