You are a Vehicle for the Glory of God!
/
Numbers 13:23-14:21
Numbers 14:21
but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD
Numbers 14:6-10
6 Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; 7 and they spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, “The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.” 10 But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the LORD appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel.
I titled my message: You are a vehicle for the glory of God! Originally, I was going to title it: God couldn’t do it, because Christian wouldn’t let Him. Then I struggled with the title. I couldn’t figure out why the struggle, was it because it was too negative and God didn’t want me to be negative? Then, I realized, no it wasn’t that. The reason why is because it simply wasn’t true. The truth was that God promised He would fill the earth with His glory, and the way that He is doing it is by using His people to bring his glory where He asks them to bring it. But it is also true that He could not do it through the 10, because they would not let Him, so with that said, which one will we be?
Will Christian let God work through Him?
When we face something that looks impossible, we need to remember that God’s work is performing the impossible. Christian’s work is believing God to do the impossible.
I can only imagine the chaos and confusion that was going on at that time. Fear had stricken the majority and confusion had gotten the best of the 10 spies, there was no turning back for these guys. Their faith was destroyed! They saw the enemy and gave up. Joshua and Caleb tried to speak godly truth, but it just made them more angry. They wanted to stone them.
hatred,
variance
wrath
strife
seditions
Troubles sometimes arise in our lives like a sudden storm on open water, and there are other times that there are chronic problems in our lives that never seem to go away. And whether it’s acute or chronic, there is danger that the believer will not keep his part of the agreement for the circumstance, and his part is to trust, believe, surrender and act in faith.
As I was praying and thinking about the tactics of the enemy: fear and chaos are tools Satan uses to bring doubt and unbelief. These feelings can quickly spread amongst God’s people like they did in the story. The purpose of the enemy is to focus the eyes of God’s people on the problem instead of God’s power and without even realizing it unbelief takes root and faith erodes.
We can be certain God watches over His people:
Psalms 121:5-8 NASB
5 The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8 The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
Psalms 33:18-20 NASB
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope for His lovingkindness,
19 To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for the LORD;
He is our help and our shield.
In prayer, God reminded how, His presence is poised and ready to move in chaos
…without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep…
without form- waste; a desolation. A place of chaos
void- ruin, waste, emptiness
…And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
As I prayed, I also heard: “Haman’s gallows”
Haman built a 75 ft high execution device to kill Mordecai because he refused to worship anything but God.
3:14…A copy of the edict to be issued as law in every province..3:15…Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews…the city of Susa was in confusion…
In the end, God turned the whole plan around and Haman was executed on his own device. When it looks like the devil is winning child of God, we must remember that God is faithful to deliver! God is planning to turn the whole situation around. His job is to deliver and our job is to believe, surrender and pray!
Believe and trust God… Job 39:11 “Will you trust him because his strength is great And leave your labor to him?
Surrender… Surrender your will to God’s will—James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Make self subordinate, bring self under subjection to the will of God
Pray- 2 Kings 6:17 Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha—you’re not alone child of God, it might feel like it sometimes, just pray, “open my eyes Lord”
Seek the face of God, call on His name and put Him in the battle. But it’s getting worse! That means it’s time to press in, not retreat. But the more I seek God, it seems worse. You’re in an ongoing battle for your faith— Satan wants to make you quit and walk away.
In the end, anything that can be shaken will be shaken.
Hebrews 12:25-29
25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
There is true Christianity and there is something else, that something else will be shaken and will not remain, the something else will lead you to focus on yourself and your best life now, and then, there is Jesus! True Christianity will always result in the magnification of Jesus,
But I just want to go to a church where all my girlfriends are like me and we sip coffee and get our toenails done together. Hold on, I thought of something. That’s not a bad idea.
There is nothing wrong with you and your girlfriends sipping coffee and getting your nails done, as a matter of fact, could you do me a favor and try to arrange something like that for the ladies that would be interesting, but do me one favor when y’all go, we can add verses to the song. “Jesus on the mountain, Jesus in the streets, Jesus with our coffee and while they do our feet, Jesus for my family. I speak the Holy name Jesus!
Jesus when you pick up your kid from school speak Jesus, but they’re going to think that I’m weird. They won’t think that you’re weird if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit and when you say His name, it sounds like honey dripping off your lips. No! They will want what you want, or they will think your weird then, and when they lie in bed at night, they will toss and turn as the Lord reminds them of your words and He speaks Jesus to their hearts.
Jesus on the mountains. Jesus in the streets. Jesus in the darkness over every enemy. I speak the holy name Jeeessus. Your name is power!
Unbelief will cause death to the promise
Hebrews 3:17-19
17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Carcasses- a member of a body, particularly the more external and prominent members esp. the feet a dead body, corpse, in as much as the members of a corpse are loose and fall apart—the scattered corpses like individual members that didn’t make it, but it represented a whole portion of the congregation
Jacob wrestled with God
Genesis 32:24-25
24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
Chaos, Esau was around the corner…the story says that God could not prevail. The mind asks what kind of God can’t win a wrestling match with a man? It’s not that He can’t. He will not transgress man’s free will. Jacob refused to give in, and the word says that when God saw that He could not prevail, he touched him in his hip. It’s not that God can’t out wrestle a man. And if you choose to refuse to surrender, at some point, He’s going to allow something to touch you to the point that you will give in to Him.
Paul said that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood; instead we wrestle against spirits It’s not always spirits that we’re wrestling, many times, it’s our own will and our own flesh
Galatians 5:24
And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Luke 9:23
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
I love Caleb
Numbers 13:30
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.”
Doesn’t that sound like the voice of faith? The HOLY spirit speaking to the child of God and encouraging him to trust and put his eyes on Jesus, to move forward with the plan, instead of looking at the problems, look to the solution.
The Lord has been telling me in prayer I want my Son magnified. I want the name of Jesus preached. I want to pour out my Spirit and move in the lives of my people, and I want this church exalting HIM. I have a hard time believing that He doesn’t want that from every church. I have a hard time believing that he doesn’t want to speak to every Pastor and tell him the same thing, but I’m not them, I’m me and all I know is that this is what a he’s telling me.
The voice of unbelief, is a voice that displeases God
God is asking His people to carry His glory into the land and the question is… will He find someone faithful to do what He is asking? Will people have the fortitude, the tenacity, the sticktoitiveness to finish the race? Not without the help of the Holy Spirit they won’t, but even with His help, if they want their own will rather than the Lord’s will they won’t endure, because part of learning God’s will requires a willingness to let the cross have its way, a willingness to let self and self desires go
Numbers 14:19-24
Moses: 19 “Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
The LORD Pardons and Rebukes
Yahweh: 22 Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, 23 shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it. 24 But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.
Sometimes the battle looks too fierce, the enemy seems too big, the chaos and confusion starts to wear us down and for a moment, we wonder if we will make it. Some points that we should be made aware of:
God made promises in the past v23
People who refuse His voice, will not see the promises
When people don’t listen, he takes it personal spurn-treat w contempt
A dream – the glory of the Lord is in the earth, it is going deep into the mud deep into the earth, The glory is moving through the depths of the earth, in and out of the earth and it’s breaking up the earth. It’s breaking up the fallow ground!
A Vision, a man on an old plow. He’s plowing the earth. He seems alone to the eye. He seems weak, he seems feeble and small, he plows with an old plow, I can’t see the animals, there are no animals, there is something else that cannot be seen pulling the plow.
It doesn’t look like much to the physical eye, but the same one that is pulling the plow is the same one that is releasing his glory into the earth, and breaking up the fallow ground!
Don’t take your hand off the plow child of God! Then the seed starts flying, the seed is raining in the air and falling onto the broken ground, entering into the broken ground. The Spirit is plowing hearts, the Spirit is breaking the fallow ground, in the breaking, ugly is revealed, confusion, chaos, irritation, it’s because it’s within the heart, within the heart, things are being exposed: your heart, my heart. Its being exposed, so it can be moved out of the way, wrong intentions, wrong thoughts, God wants them gone!
And then the seed enters the plowed earth, and what looked like gallows for the hanging, for my hanging, for the church’s hanging is suddenly turned into a victory. For a while, the chaos and confusion looked momentarily looked like an opportunity for Satan to prevail, it was an opportunity allowed by me, says the lord for you to trust me. Trust me, child of God, trust me, Church, let me cleanse you deeply, let me reach into the depths of the soil of your heart include you in preparation for your personal harvest, so I can use you in my harvest!
Let my glory, fill the Earth!!