Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

— Thank you for the opportunity

— Pray for our Pastor and everyone on senior trip

— Take your Bibles and turn to Numbers chapter 14, Numbers chapter 14, we may hop back to chapter 13 but we’ll be in chapter 14 for the most part

Most of y’all know I am a dad now as of a few months ago.

You’ve probably either met my son or have at least heard him saying amen when Brother Andrew is preaching a good message.

But since I’m a dad now, I realized I need to start practicing my dad jokes, so I thought I’d try out a couple

**Jokes

— Did you hear about the horses that formed a rebellion against the farmer when they ran out of food?

It was the last straw.

— What did the airplane yell at his rebellious son?

Watch the altitude

— Did you hear about the pigeon rebellion?

Apparently it was quite the coo.

Listen I got those from the internet so if you didn’t like those it’s not my fault.

Let’s read our passage before yall boo me off the stage.

Alright numbers 14 verse 1

*Explain story

Hebrews are slaves in egypt

God calls Moses to lead them out and free them

red sea

Promise of a land

I’d like to direct your attention back to verse 9 for a moment.

“rebel not ye against the Lord”.

Many commentators and theologians label this passage as the rebellion of Israel, even after Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb told literally told them to not rebel against the Lord.

This rebellion takes full effect when the Israelites hear this and pick up stones ready to kill these four.

To rebel is to be intentionally disobedient causing someone to become bitter, whether its yourself or the person your rebelling against.

So here’s what we’re gonna do, this rebellion, which are wrong actions is really the fruit of something else.

What we must do, is do some digging until we discover the roots, the root problem of these rebellious actions.

So the fruit is what everybody sees.

Everybody saw the wrong actions of everybody else in the nation of Israel.

So we are going to dig into the Scripture to find out what is really causing this rebellion

1. Wrong Actions (14:9-10)

These people had picked up stones, ready to kill the man who had rescued them from bondage and from Egypt.

They were so angry with the fact that they were so close to the promised land yet so far away that they were ready to kill Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb.

Their anger was so strong that they were ready to break the law of God and disregard their own salvation.

They had forgotten the omnipotent power of the Lord and His miraculous works.

They were willing to drop the law of God from their hands and pick up stones instead to kill these four men.

It got so bad in fact that the Lord Himself had to show up and make an appearance to take over the proceedings.

What happened that they had come to this point so quickly?

Wrong Actions come from

2. Wrong Words (14:1-4)

Each year on the fourth of July the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Company sponsors a hot dog eating contest.

In 2013 Joey Chestnut won the competition for the seventh year in a row, setting a new record by eating 69 hot dogs and buns in just ten minutes.

The second runner up “only” managed to eat 51.

According to news reports, Chestnut received a prize of $10,000 for his eating performance, and consumed over 20,000 calories during his eating spree.

Few of us are in danger of eating seventy hot dogs in one day, let alone nearly seven a minute for ten minutes straight.

And yet we live in a world where “enough” is never enough.

Many people devote their lives to acquiring wealth and possessions, living with a focus only on the temporal.

As a result, rather than living in contentment, they live in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction.

They struggle to get the latest and biggest and newest toys and never enjoy a moment of peace.

“Hast thou found honey?

eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour’s house; lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee.”—Proverbs

25:16-17

Your contentment must come from Christ.

The Israelites were overcome by discontentment which led to their grumbling and complaining.

Verses 1 and 2 emphasize the pervasiveness of the entire population.

The words “all the congregation” in verse 1, “all the children of Israel” in verse 2, and “the whole congregation” again in verse 2 tells the reader that this was not just a few or even a slight majority, but the entire congregation, except for Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb.

This threefold emphasis on the extent of the rebellion is important, for the judgement of God will extend tot he entire community, which has been given over to wailing, an intense form of complaining that is a distinctively eastern practice.

This is not a scene of passive resignation, of silent ruing.

We are to imagine the worst sort of rage, a picture of screaming, rending, throwing, cursing anger- an intoxication of grief.

When your eyes are on yourself and your own circumstances, you lose a godly perspective and you say and do ridiculous things.

The more the people complained, the more the people complained.

**All it takes is a spark of a bad attitude to ignite the wildfire of complaining in an entire congregation.

They would rather die in bondage in Egypt than experience the salvation of the Lord.

They are even asking to be killed right here in this wilderness.

How serious can complaining be, I mean seriously cmon.

The Lord takes it very serious.

In fact He takes it so seriously that it makes Him angry.

Just a few chapter earlier the Bible says this

The Jews had a long record of complaining agaisnt the Lord and their leaders, and being judged for it.

Their murmuring began on the night of the Exodus when they were sure Pharaoh’s army was going to kill them in Exodus 14.

As they entered the wilderness of Shur, they complained because the didn’t have water to drink in chapter 15, and they murmured because they missed the delicious meals in Egypt in chapter 16.

In chapter 17 they were ready to stone Moses because they had no water, and in Numbers 11 as we just read they complained and some were killed by fire.

Moses became so discouraged that he literally wanted to die.

Many other scriptures make reference to it

Grudge=murmur

In Proverbs 23:29 we see that complaining is a characteristic of a drunkard.

without murmuring

Here’s a verse to remember, a verse each of us need to memorize.

When the child of God is in the will of God, there is no place for complaining, even if the circumstances are difficult.

The will of God will never lead us where the grace of God can’t provide for us or the power of God protect us.

If our daily prayer is “Thy will be done”, and if we walk in obedience to God’s will, then what is there to complain about?

A complaining spirit is evidence of an ungrateful heart and an unsurrendered will.

By our grumbling, we’re daring to say that we know more than God does about what’s best for his people.

So what is at the root of wrong words?

Wrong Words come from

3. Wrong Thoughts (13:28-31)

These 10 spies let their fleshly reasoning outweigh their belief in their God.

They thought, that they knew better.

In other words they were quite prideful.

The sin of pride is an epidemic that many Christians do not realize is affecting them, their families, and their churches.

Pride, in its simplest form, is at the root of many many sins, if not the majority of sins.

In fact it was the very first sin.

Satan was prideful enough to think that he could be like God.

And again we see it in the first human sin

Because of Satan’s own pride and lies, Eve believed if she ate the fruit, she could be like gods.

Pride usually starts as a thought and somehow always manages to manifest itself as words or actions.

It is because of this first sin of pride that we also struggle with sin, especially the sin of pride.

This sin nature, or inclination to sin has infected every human who has ever lived.