The Gravest Threat to the Church

Numbers 14:26-38

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who 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. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”

So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.

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hat would you identify as the gravest threat to the continued existence of this church? Perhaps you are tempted to think that an absence of money threatens the church. If only we had more money, we could do so much more. However, we hear the Risen Son of God speak to this issue when He addressed the Church of Smyrna. I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich [Revelation 2:9]! Perhaps it is tyrants, whether pastors or boards, which in arrogance run roughshod over the people of God which threatens the congregation? I will agree that there is no place for tyrants in the church, but not even tyrants are the gravest threat to the health of the church.

Upon reading the account of God’s judgement of the Hebrew people as they journeyed through the desert toward the Promised Land, I have come to the conclusion that the gravest threat to the church is that God will surrender us to our own desires. There is no question but that when God wants to judge godless society, he gives them up to their own desires. Listen to an extended passage which details this divine surrender of wicked people to their own desires.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them [Romans 1:18-32].

Again, a searing example of the gravest threat to a people is summarised in the Seventy-eighth Psalm:

They wilfully put God to the test

by demanding the food they craved.

They spoke against God, saying,

“Can God spread a table in the desert?

When he struck the rock, water gushed out,

and streams flowed abundantly.

But can he also give us food?

Can he supply meat for his people?”

When the LORD heard them, he was very angry;

his fire broke out against Jacob,

and his wrath rose against Israel,

for they did not believe in God

or trust in his deliverance.

Yet he gave a command to the skies above

and opened the doors of the heavens;

he rained down manna for the people to eat,

he gave them the grain of heaven.

Men ate the bread of angels;

he sent them all the food they could eat.

He let loose the east wind from the heavens

and led forth the south wind by his power.

He rained meat down on them like dust,

flying birds like sand on the seashore.

He made them come down inside their camp,

all around their tents.

They ate till they had more than enough,

for he had given them what they craved.

But before they turned from the food they craved,

even while it was still in their mouths,

God’s anger rose against them;

he put to death the sturdiest among them,

cutting down the young men of Israel.

[Psalm 78:18-31]

Certainly, I could focus on either of the passages just cited to warn against the gravest threat facing us as a congregation. However, I prefer to focus on an incident which occurred in the wilderness journeys to provide a warning against self-destruction. The Living God is holy. He will not submit to our foibles in the arena of the Faith. When He has spoken, we are responsible to obey; we must not debate. Review the incident with me and dig with me through the Word of God so that we may be warned.

You no doubt recall the story. God, preparing the people to receive the land which He had promised His people, ordered that twelve spies be sent to explore the land. Those spies, one from each tribe, travelled throughout the land for forty days. At the end of that time they returned to the Israelites and delivered their reports. “Ah,” they said, “it is indeed a rich land. Here is evidence of the fruit.” Had the majority only stopped there! However, they continued with their report. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large [Numbers 13:28].

The minority report was succinct and pointed. We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it [Numbers 13:30]. Even as Caleb and Joshua tried to encourage the people to obey God, Shammua, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi and Geuel united to spread … a bad report about the land they had explored [Numbers 13:32]. They agreed that the land would devour the people. We saw the Nephilim… We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them [Numbers 13:33].

Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb tried in vain to halt the rebellion. They tried to remind the people of God’s promise to give them the land. They referred to His might and strength. However, the people would not listen. As Joshua and Caleb pleaded with the people to believe God, the Lord appeared to Moses and His anger boiled. God was prepared to kill all the people, but Moses pleaded for them and pleaded for God’s glory. God did spare them from immediate judgement, but He pronounced sentence on them. Listen to His divine sentence.

I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times—not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea [Numbers 14:20-25]. With this, Aaron seems to have joined Moses. In verses twenty-six through thirty-five, God speaks to His servants and refines the sentence so that a lesson will remain, both for the Israelites and for us who follow in their steps.

The Gravest Threat to the Church is Unbelief — Ultimately, the most serious threat to the continued existence or even to the continued health of a congregation is unbelief. God can correct error if the errant ones have a teachable spirit. God can correct our actions if our attitude is submissive to His Spirit. How often in years past did Lynda and I witness this truth! In our ministry to Calvary Baptist Church in San Francisco, we saw a fascinating procession of people coming to faith through the ministries of the church.

Those were the seventies—those days hard on the heels of the rebellious sixties. The people to whom the congregation reached out were representative of the dregs of society. They were racially mixed, which presented a threat to some people. They were experimenting with rebellion as their dress and personal grooming (or lack thereof) revealed. Repeatedly we witnessed people saved from lives which were hopeless and hard. Coming into the church, no one told them to clean up their lives. They were simply accepted as those born again into the Family of God.

They were transformed and their hearts were changed. Within a few weeks, a man would appear at a service dressed neatly and with hair and beard groomed. Introducing myself I would ask if he were a visitor. “Brother Mike, don’t you know me?” Laughing, he would remind me of who he was.

“What happened?” I’d ask. He would tell me how he wanted to honour Jesus, but nobody took him serious and he wanted people to listen. He trusted in the Lord; and God, in His own time, changed that man. Women also were changed dramatically. What was glorious was that the congregation dared believe that God was at work. The people didn’t need to coerce anyone into changing their lifestyle—they waited on the Lord.

I watched a large church in the heart of the city dwindle and die during that same time period we witnessed God reaching out through our rapidly growing congregation. That large church was straight and strict. They would not sully their reputation by permitting anyone with long hair or a scruffy beard join their church. Let people get a haircut and a shave first! They would not risk their reputation by letting street people come to church. Those young men and women who wore bell-bottom pants and beads were unwelcome. Confronting them forthrightly, they demanded that they clean up their lives first. They did not believe the Word of God which would have taught them that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come [2 Corinthians 5:17]!

There is always the threat to the people of God that well-meaning individuals cannot trust the Spirit of God and dare not trust that God’s Word means what it says. Does the Word of God teach that those who have trusted Christ are to identify with Him through baptism? This may offend some, so timid saints will tone down the demands of the Word. Does that same Word teach that baptism is identification through immersion in water as we confess our faith in the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Christ? What if others, choosing a rite which pours a cup of water on their head are offended? Shouldn’t we be reasonable and change our practise? We fear censure and so we accommodate rebellion and disbelief and embrace the tenets of this world as truth.

Such arguments speak quite plainly of unbelief, and in our rush to be acceptable to those who are unsubmitted to the Word we rewrite the Word as we think it perhaps should have been written. We are afraid of what some, themselves dead in trespasses and sins, may think if we do not adopt the culture in which we live as the standard by which we worship. So, we set women apart to the service of Christ as pastors and elders. We cease believing God and rewrite His Word to suit the inhabitants of this dying world.

The challenge which is always before the church is whether to believe the Word of God, or whether to submit that Word to the finest speculations of fallen man. Can God speak to us? Of course, we will all answer that God can speak to man if He wills to do so. Has God spoken through this Word? Again, we give assent to this proposition. However, when that which God has spoken seems hard to accept, we hasten to soften His words or to make them palatable to fallen man. Such efforts must be seen for what they are—unbelief. Such efforts must be rejected as unworthy of those born from above. Either we believe God, or we believe our own explanations.

The Gravest Threat to the Church is Expressed through Grumbling — The grumbling was directed against God! Grumbling is a sign of unbelief. Thus, grumbling, an expression of unbelief, threatens the health of the people of God because it introduces discontent concerning the will of God and doubt concerning the Word of God. Grumbling is evidence that the grumblers no longer believe the Lord God.

To grumble is to question God’s goodness. The grumbler is in effect complaining that God is not good or else He would have done what would make the grumbler happy. This is a most serious charge against the character of God. Whatever else may be true, we know from the Word that God is good. You will recall that when the rich ruler addressed Jesus as Good Teacher, our Lord immediately challenged him by stating the obvious truth that no one is good—except God alone [Luke 18:19]. Though the Saviour was gently probing to see whether the man recognised Him as God, the statement is nevertheless true—God alone is good. It should be apparent that charging God with being less than good is tantamount to attempting to dethrone Him as God. This is a serious charge, but the grumbler does say that God is not good.

Grumblers are complaining about God’s fairness. By their complaints, grumblers are questioning God’s treatment of them. They are tacitly complaining that God is not fair toward them. However, we are taught that God does not show favouritism [Romans 2:11]. It should be apparent, however, that the one who murmurs against God and against God’s leader is stating that God is unfair. Through their grumbling they assert that they are capable of serving as arbiters of God’s character. Their grumbling is tantamount to promoting their own ability to judge God! What arrogance the grumbler demonstrates!

Those who grumble doubt God’s ability. The complainers are saying that they doubt God’s wisdom. They are questioning His knowledge. They are grumbling against His might and power. Within the church we too often hear people grumble about the leadership which God appoints. Such people are assured in their own hearts that they have the right to dictate to the pastor what should be taught and what should be permitted. Have they never heard the teaching of the Word which says, obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you [Hebrews 13:17]?

The grumbler says that God cannot be trusted to appoint wise leaders. The grumbler says that God cannot direct the hearts and minds of His appointed leaders. The grumbler says that God is unable to call His servant to account. The grumbler thinks that she can do a better job than God, and so she complains and carps and grumbles and grouses and gripes and makes every effort to destroy the faith of others. However, she only demonstrates her own lack of faith through her grumbling.

Grumbling states that the one complaining no longer believes God. When the people grumbled, we might have thought they were grumbling against Moses and Aaron. However, review their complaint. 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 desert! 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 14:2-4]. This is the foundation for the Lord’s words in Numbers 14:27: How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.

The complaint is directed toward Moses and Aaron, because they are visible. Just so, no one ever complains against God when the church is not doing what he or she wants. They complain against the leaders whom God has appointed. However, you must understand something of grave significance. Churches do not elect leaders! Churches may hire people to say what their itching ears want to hear, but God alone appoints leaders. God alone calls pastors and appoints them to service. The churches can only discover the will of God and submit to that will or ignore that which is revealed as God’s will! All complaints are complaints against God.

It is vital that we each understand that those who choose to grumble are actually assailing the very character of God. They doubt His goodness. They question His fairness. They call His ability into question. His wisdom and knowledge are suspect in the grumblers’ minds. Ultimately, grumblers reveal their own heart of unbelief. Such individuals need to be seen as the unbelievers they actually are. To tolerate grumblers among the people of God is to invite God’s wrath toward that congregation since their continued presence clearly dishonours Him.

Should you think that I have been overly harsh against those who grumble against the Lord and against His servants, I invite you to listen to the warning issued by Jude. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage [Jude 14-16].

The Gravest Threat to the Church Ultimately Results in Congregational Death — The grave danger resulting from grumbling unchecked is that it will spread and contaminate the Body. Listen to verse 36. The men Moses had sent to explore the land … returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it. Grumbling, unchecked, generates more grumbling still. This is one area in which the people of God must show no tolerance. To tolerate a little bit of grumbling is to invite God to judge us as unbelievers. None of us wish to receive such an appellation.

Does God ignore grumbling? Listen to the divine text as I read of the events which followed that verse I just referred to. These men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived [Numbers 14:37, 38]. It should be obvious that those who complain receive God’s attention. However, the attention they invite and receive will not necessarily be welcome!

God treats grumbling among His holy people as a most serious sin. There was another incident of grumbling in the wilderness which stands to this day as a warning against permitting such discontent to continue unchecked. Paul warns Christians in His Corinthian letter when he writes, do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel [1 Corinthians 10:10]. He is speaking of the grumbling occasioned by Korah’s rebellion [Numbers 16:1-50]. James also warns against grumbling. Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door [James 5:9]! Apparently, grumbling is considered far more serious by God than by us!

God killed the grumblers, but the danger to the congregation was not over. The Israelites, having witnessed the discipline of the Lord, now presumed that they could make up for their former rebellion. They briefly mourned, no doubt regretting the fact that they had heeded the grumbling. The fact that God would hold people accountable sobered them. Now, however, they determined that they would do what God had first commanded. Focus in on verse 40. “We have sinned,” they said. “We will go up to the place the LORD promised.”

The Israelites appear to think that it is a little thing to sin against the Lord God. Underscore in your mind this vital truth: there is no such thing as a little sin. Just as it is true that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough [see Galatians 5:9], so a little sin contaminates a great body. A little sin threw the churches of Galatia off stride and caused them to stumble [see Galatians 5:7-10]. A little boasting caused the Corinthians to come under threat of divine judgement [see 1 Corinthians 5:6-8]. A small drop of arsenic contaminates a bottle of water, and a little sin tolerated among the people of God invites God’s judgement. Thus, we are warned not to associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat [1 Corinthians 5:11].

We would agree that sexual immorality is an awful sin, and we have no difficulty in quickly distancing ourselves from those who engage in such sin. Drunkards and swindlers, likewise, will receive swift treatment at the hands of the people of God. However, note that those who are greedy, those who are idolatrous and those who are slanderers are equally sinful in the eyes of the Lord. The one who claims to love the people of God, but continues to speak ill of them and run them down in the presence of others is to be shunned. The one who claims to love Christ, but who craves power over others is to be exposed as sinful. The one who speaks of her love of the church, but who endeavours to amass personal wealth is to be shunned. These are not nice sins; these are horrific sins for which Christ the Lord gave His life.

In the same breath the Israelites dare to say, We have sinned and then presumptuously assert, We will go up to the place the Lord promised. This demonstrates that they had both a low view of sin and an improper view of Holy God. They considered their grumbling a little thing. Since God did not immediately strike them dead, then He must approve of them. Tied to that casual view of their sin was the thought that God could be manipulated through their action.

Such attitudes are not uncommon to this day. We are prone to think that our sins are not great sins and thus God must approve of what we do. It must be said that none of us are sinless. Likewise, it must be stated that our sin is horrendous, for it was sin which caused the death of the Son of God. Again, there is no such thing as a little bit of sin. No doubt, it is high time that the church saw sin as God sees sin and abhors all sin.

The divine view of the Israelites is given in verse 44 where we discover that it was in their presumption that they went up. Ultimately, to continue to act as we wish without regard to the honour of God among His holy people is to invite His rebuke and to dare Him to hold us to account. God is holy, and all presumptuous sin must be judged. Grumbling ignored by the people of God, must of necessity result in divine judgement.

Let me make the case somewhat stronger yet. The grumbling which earned God’s displeasure and judgement, was not simply slanderous speech—horrible as that would be. The Greek word [goggusmov"] simply means a complaint or expression of displeasure expressed through murmuring. It is secret talk, or whispering. We don’t give such action much thought—but God does. This is the complaining which motivated the Apostles to appoint deacons [Acts 6:1]. This is the constant whispering about Jesus which John notes [John 7:12, 13].

Paul, in Philippians 2:14-16, urges us as Christians to do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour for nothing. By implication, when we do complain and argue, we cannot claim to be blameless and pure. We sacrifice our testimony before a crooked and depraved generation and we cease to shine like stars in the universe since we are no longer able to hold out the Word of life. Dear people, I make the same plea which the Apostle made to the Philippians. Conduct yourselves without complaining or arguing. My prayer is that you will become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the Word of life. I long to anticipate that I may boast on the Day of Christ that I did not run or labour for nothing.

I ask two things of you. First, I ask that you reassess your view of grumbling. Understand that complaining about the direction of your church is ultimately complaining against God. If the church is moving toward sin, speak to those who can do something about that sin. Speak to the Pastor. Challenge him to consider the Word of God. If the Pastor will not listen, take your concerns to the leadership whom God has appointed in the church. If the leadership will not address your concerns, speak to the church. However, do not grumble and complain and murmur to outsiders, to denominational leaders, to other pastors, to individual church members. All that does is ensure that you are the one sinning against God.

Second, I urge you not to permit grumbling to find a home among us. Whenever someone begins to complain, ask if they have addressed their concern to the Pastor. Ask if they have taken their concerns to the leadership of the church. Ask if they are willing to take the issue before the church. If they have not done these things, you share in their sin through listening to their grumbling. Such attitudes invite the judgement of God and ensure that we cannot honour Him. Ultimately, it is to invite Him to judge us, which He must do if He will maintain His holy Name. Amen.