“God Gives Us the Victory! (Numbers 21)", Will DuVal | 4/20/25
Numbers 21 | 4/20/25 | Will DuVal
What’s the greatest VICTORY you’ve ever witnessed?
I imagine some of your minds go immediately to Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, the “David Freese game”.
I’m a Tennessee boy, so I’ll never forget watching the “Music City Miracle” in the 2000 playoffs. Of course you RAMS’ fans will happily remind me that we would still come up “One Yard Short” to your “Greatest Show on Turf” in the SUPER Bowl that year - another great St. Louis victory.
Maybe you’re not a SPORTS fan; if you Google for “greatest victories”, you get a list of famous BATTLES. I realized this week: we’ve got about a DOZEN congregants here who actually LIVED through World War TWO - Ms. June was already 19 years old! During D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge… Amazing!
Well as great as all those victories were, this morning we’re gonna hear about FOUR even GREATER victories that God won for His people, Israel, in the book of Numbers. If you’re just joining us, we’ve been journeying through the book of Numbers here since January now - it is an INCREDIBLE book, that is SO RELEVANT to our lives today. It’s the story of God’s people in between their DELIVERANCE from slavery in EGYPT and God’s leading them INTO the PROMISED LAND, Canaan. But in BETWEEN is a WHOLE lotta WILDERNESS.
Perhaps you’re here this morning, and you’re a Christian, but you’re BACK in church for the FIRST time in a LONG time, because maybe if you’re honest, you were MAD at God. Maybe you gave your life to Jesus, and you kinda expected everything to get BETTER, life to get EASIER. But then the bills only got BIGGER, your marriage got even ROCKIER, the cancer came back with a vengeance… And you thought, “God, if this is life with you in the picture, what’s the POINT?” And you’ve FORGOTTEN where you’re LIVING within the STORY: we’re still in the WILDERNESS. We’re not IN the Promised Land yet. If you are truly SAVED - if God has brought you OUT OF the BONDAGE of sin, delivered YOU from slavery - then YES, He has PROMISED that He will one day, eventually, bring you HOME, INTO the land, into HEAVEN. That is the glorious GOOD news! But the BAD news is: look AROUND; you ain’t there YET! So we shouldn’t be SURPRISED to find snakes and scorpions and scorching heat… debt and divorce, depression and disability… that’s just life here in the WILDERNESS, in-between our rescue from the PENALTY of sin, at SALVATION, and our rescue from even the PRESENCE of sin and evil, at our GLORIFICATION, when God brings us home.
But the JOURNEY in between can get LONG, and HARD, can’t it? And we’re tempted to lose HOPE, lose FAITH - “God, where ARE you, in this present wilderness?”; He PROMISES never to leave or forsake us, but sometimes we struggle to SENSE His presence here WITH us through life’s hardships. So we fear and we worry and we DOUBT, like the ISRAELITES. In just the first 20 chapters of the book of Numbers that we’ve covered since January, we’ve seen Israel complain and freak out and REBEL against God ELEVEN TIMES already! And they’re gonna do it again a TWELFTH time this morning in ch21!
But we’re ALSO gonna see them get it RIGHT here, finally. Chapter 21 marks a “NEW BEGINNING” for God’s people; it’s a TURNING point in the book, a TRANSITION from the old and faithless generation of Israelites doomed for DEATH in the wilderness… NOW… to the NEW and (mostly) faithful generation - their OFFSPRING - who are destined for LIFE in the PROMISED Land. They’re still not PERFECT, as we’ll see. But making it into HEAVEN isn’t about being perfect. It’s about trusting in the One who WAS. Who lived the life we should but FAIL to, who died the death we DESERVE in our place, and then ROSE victoriously to bring US life everlasting.
That’s the good news of EASTER. And it’s the good news of Numbers 21. Jesus said ALL of the Bible is here to point us to HIM. And we’re gonna see Him on every PAGE this morning, as we unpack these 4 great victories - HISTORICAL, LITERAL victories - that God won for ISRAEL 3,400 years ago… EACH of which points us AHEAD - PROPHETICALLY, SYMBOLICALLY - to the victory that Jesus CHRIST won for US through His death and RESURRECTION on that first Easter morning.
So let’s dive in! Hear the word of the Lord this morning:
“When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. 2 And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.” 3 And the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.” [which means, “destruction”]
So the FIRST victory we see God give us here is the one over the ENEMY through his EMPOWERMENT. (vv1-3)
I’m a pretty analytical guy, so I think about it this way: the CANAANITES are stronger than the ISRAELITES… but GOD is stronger than the CANAANITES. Pretty simple.
Israel fighting Canaan on their OWN; not a fair fight for ISRAEL (Canaan’s taking them “captive”).
But Israel fighting them with GOD’S help, HIS backing, His empowerment - not a fair fight for the CANAANITES (they are doomed for destruction).
Now if I can just jump straight to the application for YOU AND ME this morning, the Bible says that we TOO have an ENEMY. As a matter of FACT, he’s the one BEHIND all the depression and divorce and cancer and tornadoes. The Bible says God created the world “very GOOD” in the beginning, but then who came along and WRECKED it, by convincing us we didn’t NEED God in order to be happy; that we could be GODS unto OURSELVES? That enemy’s name is SATAN - the “deceiver”, the adversary.
Now a lot of pastors won’t mention Satan this Easter, because it’s a good way to LOSE some of your visitors; “Really? SATAN?! You actually BELIEVE in that…?” But the truth is we can’t make sense of the BROKENNESS in this world without him, and if you can believe in an invisible God who CREATED it all, why NOT an invisible enemy who wants to RUIN it? Satan should be no harder to believe in than GOD; depending on how much chaos and brokenness you’ve got in your life, maybe even EASIER!
-
But all we need to know about Satan - our “enemy” - for the purposes of the analogy being MADE here in vv1-3 of Numbers 21, is that HE is stronger than US, but GOD is stronger than HIM.
Satan is stronger than YOU; GOD is stronger than SATAN.
The FIRST half of that equation should be self-evident enough. If there really is a supernatural, spiritual force of EVIL at work in our world - behind ALL of the chaos and destruction we find - I probably don’t even need to mention the hurricanes and coronaviruses and Cadbury eggs - they are proof of the FALL; disgusting! - but I don’t even have to APPEAL to those kinds of external factors as proof. Because we all know inherently, deep down, that we are powerless over EVIL on our own; Satan is stronger. You can’t beat ALCOHOLISM on your own. Your PORN addiction. Your bondage to ANGER; Satan is holding some of you captive… to RESENTMENT. To materialism, GREED… lust, envy, gossip, gluttony, pride… the list goes on, and the lesson is clear: on our own, you and I are NO match for our ENEMY.
But praise GOD: we aren’t ON our own. Or at least we don’t HAVE to be. And I wanna make 4 really quick but important points we see here about the empowerment God gives us:
First, notice He didn’t empower Israel until they ASKED for it; v2: “Israel VOWED A VOW…” - Some of you are still losing the battle because you haven’t actually GIVEN it to GOD yet. You haven’t yet accepted - in humility - your DEFEAT, fighting in your OWN strength, and surrendered the fight to THE LORD: “God, YOU must ‘give this people into my hand’; cuz I can’t WIN this one on my OWN.”
Second, God doesn’t empower us for COMPROMISES. V2: “Israel vowed… ‘If you will give this people over…’ then we will MAKE A PEACE TREATY with them”...??
No! “Devote them to DESTRUCTION”! Maybe you’re still losing the battle because you’re making compromises: “God, I’ll stop drinking… Sunday to Friday…”
“I’ll stop watching porn if you give me a GIRL to hook up with instead…”
“I’ll forgive him in my HEART, but I’ll be DAMNED if I’m ever gonna SPEAK to him again…”
And we make room for a LITTLE resentment, a LITTLE lust, just a little SIN, instead of rooting it out entirely; devoting it to destruction.
Third: notice it’s quite possible that God wants to empower us most at the place of our greatest weakness in the past. If you’re NOT new this morning, you might remember the town of Hormah, because this is where the OLD generation of Israelites - their PARENTS - were DEFEATED by the Canaanites back in ch14, when they tried to take the land in their OWN strength, WITHOUT God. But NOW, WITH God’s help, Israel wins their very first victory EVER, in the Promised Land, at HORMAH.
Maybe if you’re honest, you’ve just RESIGNED yourself at this point: “I’ll NEVER be a good HUSBAND; that ship has SAILED! Guess I’ll take the battle ELSEWHERE; try and at least be a good FATHER…”
“I’ll ALWAYS struggle with PRIDE; but look how great I’m doing at fighting against ANGER and GREED and ENVY…” (that’s your PRIDE talking, by the way!)
But perhaps God is saying to you this morning: “No! Don’t RUN from the battle; just let ME fight it!” Cuz your weakness - your crappy marriage - is EXACTLY the place I want to give you victory and healing and redemption; what a TESTIMONY THAT would be, of MY power and faithfulness - if I could use the two of Y’ALL one day, to actually LEAD marriage retreats; can you IMAGINE? Only I - GOD - can accomplish THAT victory - so it’s EXACTLY the victory I want to GIVE you, if you’ll TRUST me.
But fourthly and finally on this point, what about when He DOESN’T? When you do everything RIGHT - you ASK, and you TRUST; you KNOW that God has the power to deliver… but the cancer still spreads. The addiction still lingers. God doesn’t empower the victory that you’d hoped and prayed for.
If that’s YOU this morning, at least you’re in good company. The greatest Christian of all time - the apostle Paul - wrote this in the 2 Corinthians 12; he says: “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan [there he IS again…] to harass me”. Now, we don’t know if Paul’s “thorn” was some physical ailment - like cancer - or a spiritual one, Paul certainly spiritual-IZES it, as a “messenger of SATAN” - could have been the “demon” of alcoholism, or sex-aholism, or some other addiction. But what we DO know is THIS: he writes, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”” (vv7-9)
In OTHER words: “Sometimes I miraculously REMOVE the thorn - the cancer, the addiction - to prove my SAVING power over Satan… but OTHER times, I give you the STRENGTH - “grace that is sufficient” - to see you THROUGH your suffering, in order to prove my SUSTAINING power instead.”
We don’t LIKE the “sustaining power” as much, do we? “I’ll take the SAVING power, please…” But PAUL prays: “God, if you can get even MORE glory from ALLOWING me to go ON suffering so I cling all the TIGHTER to YOU in FAITH, for STRENGTH to SUSTAIN me every step of the WAY out here in this evil wilderness… then God: SO BE IT.” “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Praise GOD, who empowers us, and gives us VICTORY over our enemy, sometimes in ways we weren’t even praying for.
We read ON, v4:
“From Mount Hor [Israel] set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” [the “manna”; the bread from heaven with which God was supernaturally feeding them every day; they’re SICK of it!]
This is rebellion #TWELVE that I mentioned in the Intro. And if you’ve been WITH us or read THRU Numbers, what stands out about it is just how SIMILAR their grumbling is here to the PREVIOUS eleven uprisings. So many components of their complaint are just “copy and paste”: their IMPATIENCE - “Are we THERE yet?” - EVERY parent’s favorite road-trip question, right?; their INSUBORDINATION - their refusal to accept Moses’ leadership, even GOD’S!; their ACCUSATIONS - “You brought us out here just to KILL us!”; their INGRATITUDE for what they already HAVE - “this WORTHLESS manna”; and their FAITHLESSNESS concerning what they NEED - they whine “there’s no food or water”... even though God has already MIRACULOUSLY split open ROCKS and rained down bread from HEAVEN to take CARE of them… they still DOUBT Him.
And before we go ANY further in the story, we need to pause and recognize two very important things ABOUT this impatience, insubordination… FAITHLESSNESS:
First of all: that’s US, isn’t it? I don’t know about Y’ALL, but I’m not always the most patient when it comes to enduring “suffering” here in the wilderness. And I do use that word “suffering” in scare quotes because I’ll be honest: it doesn’t take a black EYE to get ME moaning “Woe is me!”; a bad HANGNAIL usually does the trick. If I get home today and HBO Max gives me an ERROR message while I’m trying to watch the GRIZZLIES game, I’ll be just about ready to renounce the FAITH: “God, how COULD you!”
Accusations, ingratitude, faithlessness - that’s ME!
That’s the FIRST thing we’ve gotta recognize here: Israel’s failures are OUR failures, our character defects, our shortcomings.
But here’s the SECOND thing, friends: we can USE words like “failures” and “defects” and “shortcomings”, but the BIBLE uses an even STRONGER word for this kind of impatience and ingratitude and insubordination - the desire to run your own life and NOT surrender it to God and follow HIS leading - the Bible calls it SIN. And we need to understand that “SIN” isn’t just RAPE and ADULTERY and MURDER - the really bad stuff that some OTHER people may do, but not ME, cuz I’m a mostly good person; guess what: so were the ISRAELITES! We’ve got four little mini-stories this morning, and this new generation of Israelites goes THREE for FOUR; they trust and obey God in vv1-3, vv10-20, AND in vv21-35. There’s really just these TWO VERSES - 4 and 5 - where they DIS-obey. And it’s not even “that BAD” - just a little GRUMBLING; that’s all.
But that’s just the POINT; God wants us to see that there IS no such thing as SIN that is “not that bad”; the Bible says that ALL sin is rebellion against an UTTERLY HOLY God, who will not simply turn a blind eye to ANY sin - God is PERFECTLY JUST - and His word TELLS us that the “WAGES of sin” - ALL sin, ANY sin - its CONSEQUENCE is DEATH (Rom 6:23a).
And we see that on VIVID display now, in vv6-9:
“Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”
I’m gonna be honest with ya: this is one of the WEIRDEST stories in the entire BIBLE. …AND one of the most POWERFUL, important ones. Because even if this morning is the very first time you’ve ever OPENED a Bible, I BET - there’s a good chance - that you’re familiar with at least ONE verse; the most well-known, well-loved, well-quoted verse of ALL, and for good reason: what IS it? Sports fans?
John 3:16. You remember it from Tim Tebow’s EYE black: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” But did you know Jesus DELIVERED those famous, beautiful words while he was explaining this story of the bronze serpent, to a man named Nicodemus? Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a professionally RELIGIOUS guy, who was trying his hardest to please God by following all 613 commandments of the OT Law. And he paid Jesus what he thought was the greatest compliment; he said: “Rabbi, you are an AMAZING teacher…”
But JESUS said, “Oh, Nicodemus; you need so much more than a good teacher… so much MORE than a good understanding of the LAW… you must be BORN AGAIN to get into Heaven.”
And confused, Nicodemus asked, “Can a grown man crawl back up inside his mother’s WOMB again?!”
And Jesus explained, “No, no; you must be born of the SPIRIT.”
He said, “Everyone here on earth is born a first time, physically. But to receive eternal LIFE, you must be born SPIRITUALLY as well.
So Nicodemus asked, “How do you do THAT?!”
And Jesus replied: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:14-15)
How is JESUS like the bronze SERPENT?
First, the serpent is a symbol of SIN; think SATAN, in the Garden of Eden. Here in Numbers 21, it is Israel’s own SIN that keeps ATTACKING them, PLAGUING them. But like the bronze serpent, JESUS was made in the LIKENESS of sinful man, though he was himself sin-LESS. No venom.
Second, like the serpent, Jesus had to be “lifted up”. On the CROSS, Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the tree… By his wounds we have been healed.” (1 Pet 2:24). The Bible says, “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18); “For our sake [God] made him to be sin though he knew no sin, so that in him WE might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus WAS the “righteousness of God”; he “knew no sin” at ALL. But as he was “lifted up” on that cross, Jesus laid down his LIFE to “BECOME SIN - a SNAKE - for OUR sake”, taking our sins upon HIMSELF and bearing their punishment in our PLACE, in order to HEAL us, make us “RIGHTEOUS”, and thereby BRING us - reconcile us - to GOD.
And all of that is AMAZING news - that in his incarnation, Christ was made a SERPENT like us, FOR us. That in his crucifixion, He was “lifted up” to take our sins upon himself.
But friends, you need to know that’s STILL not enough to SAVE you this morning. How were the Israelites SAVED from their snake bites?
First, they had to CONFESS. V7: “We have SINNED!”
Second, they had to go to God’s appointed MEDIATOR for HELP: “Pray to the LORD for us; HELP us, Moses!”.
But THIRD, once he DID - Moses PRAYED; God SPOKE; Moses OBEYED and MADE the serpent; he LIFTED it up - but NONE of that was enough to HEAL you unless you… WHAT?
“LOOKED on it”! “If anyone LOOKS at the bronze serpent, he shall LIVE.” It’s the exact same cure - the same ANTI-venom for SIN - that WE’VE been given today? “Look to JESUS, and LIVE.”
CONFESS - “Lord, I’ve SINNED!”; GO to him - JESUS is our better MOSES, who intercedes for us with God the Father: “HELP us, Jesus!”. But then thirdly, we’ve gotta TRUST him. That’s what it takes to “LOOK”. It makes absolutely NO sense to think that staring at a bronze pole is gonna CURE you of a SNAKE bite… unless God SAID it would! Similarly, I can try and stand up here and explain the theological LOGIC of “double imputation” or “penal substitution”, but at the end of the day, the ONLY way it makes ANY sense that looking to CHRIST on the CROSS would save US from our SINS, is by FAITH! Because God SAID it would: “Whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal LIFE.”
Isaiah 45:22 - “LOOK to me and be SAVED,” God declares.
Confess to Jesus, Go to Jesus, LOOK to Jesus in FAITH… and be SAVED.
#3- God gives us victory over our WANDERING & WILDERNESS through His WORD & WATER. (vv10-20)
Now for sake of time, we’re not gonna read all of vv10-20, but let’s at least get a snippet:
“Then the people of Israel set out and camped in Oboth. 11 And they set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness that is opposite Moab, toward the sunrise. 12 From there they set out and camped in the Valley of Zered. 13 From there they set out and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that extends from the border of the Amorites…”
Alright, you get the picture: lots of camping; lots of “setting out”, journeying, WANDERING; and a WHOLE lot of WILDERNESS.
But while we don’t necessarily hear about it here, we are told earlier in Numbers ch9 that Israel’s WANDERING is not AIMLESS. There’s that great Lord of the Rings quote: “Not all who WANDER are LOST”; that’s ISRAEL! Lots of wandering, but never LOST; they’re being LED the whole TIME, by the LORD, who GUIDED them through the wilderness in the form of a cloud by day and a fire by night.
And He also GUIDED them by His WORD. The phrase “and the Lord said to Moses” appears over 150 times in the book of Numbers (including HERE, in v16); God is CONSTANTLY giving his people DIRECTION through his WORD.
And the same is still true of US, today. At least it CAN be, it SHOULD to be. God WANTS to guide us through his word. “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,” the psalmist rejoices;
“The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (119:105, 130). That’s what a sermon IS, by the way: “the UNFOLDING of God’s WORD,” to give LIGHT and DIRECTION to the “SIMPLE”.
It can be hard to get your BEARINGS out here in the wilderness, can’t it? Don’t be like the stereotypical sitcom husband, who in his PRIDE, REFUSES to stop and ask for directions! Life’s too SHORT, and the wilderness is too HARSH to be taking senseless DETOURS; check the MAP! [**BIBLE**] Right HERE; God’s WORD. Come to CHURCH; you need to hear it “unfolded” every Sunday; this is your “G.P.S.” - GOD’S positioning system; his WORD.
AND… God’s SPIRIT. Just before he died, Jesus told his disciples, “I know you’re SAD that I’m LEAVING, but it’s actually BETTER for you that I GO, because I’m SENDING you my Holy SPIRIT, to live INSIDE you, and to “guide you into all the truth”” (Jn 16:13). And we get a symbolic foreshadowing of the SPIRIT as WELL here, in v16, with the WELL at Be-er; often throughout Scripture WATER represents God’s SPIRIT: In John 7, Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me,... ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive” (Jn 7:38-39).
But the water here in Numbers 21 is ALSO meant to remind us of God’s PROVISION. Not only can we quickly get LOST in the wilderness; we get THIRSTY! How refreshing, then, in v16 here, before they even ASK Him for it this time, the Lord tells Moses to “Gather the people together, so that I may give them water.”
Because our God is a good Father who LOVES meeting the needs of His children. The road that leads to the Promised Land is a LONG and ARDUOUS one - Jesus didn’t SUGAR-coat it for us: “the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matt 7:13-14) Remember Robert Frost, “The Road Less Traveled”? Jesus says, “Take THAT one!” That’s the path I’M on; as a matter of fact: I’M the PATH! Jesus said, “I AM the way - the PATH - NO ONE comes to the Father except through ME!” You need ME to get to HIM. And you’re gonna need me to SUSTAIN you every step of the WAY until you ARRIVE. I am your PROVIDER. My WORD, my WATER: ““If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink”; “whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again.” (Jn 7:37; 4:14).
And then FINALLY, #4- God gives us victory over DEATH through His DELIVERANCE. (vv21-35)
Again, we’re not gonna read the whole passage here, but another snippet:
“Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, 22 “Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into field or vineyard. We will not drink the water of a well. We will go by the King's Highway until we have passed through your territory.” 23 But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. He gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to the wilderness and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel.
If you were here LAST week, for chapter TWENTY, this should sound FAMILIAR, because it’s almost VERBATIM what happened with the EDOMITES: Moses sent messengers to the king of EDOM… “Let us pass through your LAND”... We won’t pass through field or vineyard, or drink from your WELLS, we’ll take the King’s Highway - EXACT same LETTER of REQUEST.
And remember EDOM responded about as well as SIHON does here: “Edom came out against Israel with a large army and a strong force” (20:20).
But ONE thing IS different this time: the RESULT. Edom chased Israel AWAY; but THIS time, Israel FINALLY stands their ground, in FAITH:
“And Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites…”
And v26 lets us know how IMPRESSIVE that was, because SIHON had apparently defeated the MOABITES, and taken all of THEIR land; so now ISRAEL is the CONQUEROR of conquerors!
Similarly, if we skip down to v32 now, past their SONG about defeating Sihon (vv27-30 are like the ORIGINAL “diss track”; sorry, Kendrick)... but in v32, we read:“And Moses sent to spy OUT Jazer…”
Now THAT’s reminiscent of ch14; the LAST time Moses sent SPIES into the Promised Land, to scope things out… it didn’t END so well; they brought back a “bad report”, about how BIG and SCARY the Canaanites were, and the Israelites wet their PANTS, and fled back into the WILDERNESS for another 38 years. But THIS time:
“they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. 33 Then they turned and went up by the way to Bashan. And Og the king of Bashan came out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.”
Now let me explain why I summarized this point as God giving us DELIVERANCE from DEATH. Make no mistake - that’s what Israel is FACING here: certain DEATH. Deuteronomy 3 tells us that Og ruled over 60 heavily fortified cities, with armies to FILL them. It tells us that Og was a descendant “of the Rephaim”, giants that lived in those days; you know about GOLIATH? Og made him look like a SHRIMP. The Bible says his bed was 13 ½ ft LONG and 6 feet WIDE cuz it HAD to be, to HOLD him… and it was made out of IRON cuz it HAD to be, to HOLD him.
Now imagine 60 CITIES-worth of OGs all cresting the hill at Edrei; this is certain DEATH… SURELY?!
“But the Lord said to Moses, “Do not FEAR him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land… So they defeated him… And they possessed his land.”
Friend, let me just cut to the chase: there is only ONE who has the POWER to defeat DEATH itself. And he PROVED it when he walked out of the GRAVE 2,000 years ago, and laughed:
““O death, where is your victory?! O death, where is your sting?!”” (1 Cor 15:55)
Church: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (v57)
The Bible says that “through death [Jesus] destroy[ed] the one who has the power of death, the devil, and deliver[ed] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Heb 2:14-15) In other words, without JESUS, you should RIGHTLY FEAR death, SO much, it should feel so OPPRESSIVE to you, that it’s like “SLAVERY” for your SOUL. Until we meet JESUS, all of LIFE is just numbing and distracting, avoiding and delaying the INEVITABLE: DEATH! Which comes for us ALL! And it’s either gonna render your 70 or 80 or 90 short years here totally MEANINGLESS - just a bunch of aimless wandering, delaying the inevitable… - OR your death can make ALL of this wilderness ETERNALLY WORTHWHILE, as you pass from THIS life… into TRUE life! From THIS world… to your TRUE HOME! You can own real estate in the PROMISED LAND this morning, for the first time EVER - look at where Numbers 21 ENDS: “they POSSESSED his land”! Israel FINALLY made it IN! And so can YOU!
But friends, ONLY if you KNOW the One who KILLED DEATH that glorious Easter morning. Who CONQUERED it FOR us through his OWN death… and RESURRECTION!
Listen: your past failures don’t HAVE to DEFINE you!
The FIRST time Israel came to Hormah, they got WHIPPED.
The first time they saw GIANTS, they FLED in FEAR.
The first time they got PUNISHED for their faithless grumbling, they complained even MORE!
But THIS time at Hormah, they trusted GOD.
THIS time they went toe-to-TOE with the giants, with DEATH!
THIS time they CONFESSED their sin… they went to God’s MEDIATOR… and they LOOKED TO the SERPENT-KILLER in HUMBLE, DESPERATE FAITH… and THEY WERE SAVED!
And you can be TOO this morning: look to Jesus. “Whoever believes in him shall notperish but have eternallife”. Let’s pray…