BACK TO BASICS
Enhancing authority
Authority only functions properly
when we are properly submitted. Moses failed to be totally submitted by
departing from God's perfect provision when he took on extra helpers, some of
which not entirely trustworthy. Consequently, his own authority over the people
dwindled and they followed Korah in revolt (c 1426 BC).
Subsequently Moses wisely re-established
strict regulations and got the people focused back on the motions and
discipline which had kept them safe until then (Numbers 17-18). Moses reminds the people that authority is a good
thing and a gift from God. Authority brings freedom and not restriction.
Moses asserted the place of the
Levite priests (headed by Eleazar) within the community and emphasizes tithing
to them. The tithing is really the showing of honour to God but is must be done
through the priests, who have spiritual authority over the people. God honors authority.
Submission to authority
Authority can be used for good or
for bad, it can be used or abused. Heavenly authority is divinely given to
provide blessings. God can and does bless anyone any way He wants but He
reserves certain types of blessings for submission to authority.
With submission the spiritual leader
comes protection. The Bible is honeycombed with examples of the results of
submitting (or not) to the authority of God – directly and through the leaders
He established. In fact, this is, arguably, the central theme of the Old
Testament. Jesus himself speaks at length about this.
For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in
heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Jesus (God the son) himself served as an example of this by placing
himself under God the Father.
Specific blessings of authority [1]
Ezekiel 34 shows importance to be rightly connected to the church body and to
receive a pastor, as your pastor. There are 10 blessings that we have just
because we are submitted to a Pastor who loves us and is submitted to
authority, like us
:
1.
Peace
2.
Divine protection
3.
Showers of blessing
4.
Financial increase
5.
Yokes of bondage will be broken
6.
Deliver you from Believers who
have mistreated you
7.
Deliver you from heathen that
have mistreated you
8.
No fear
9.
Dramatic financial increase
10. No shame, God will be with you and they shall know that He is the
Lord God almighty!
Essential for the anointing
God created the model of authority. That is
why He goes to such great detail about it in His word. It is all to benefit us,
his creation.
The anointing is the holy “oil” that the “machinery” of godly ministry
works through. We all need it to accomplish what God had for us. Moses and all
the prophets and leaders of Scripture clearly had it. That is how they did
their miracles. The anointing is needed at all levels of ministry. The Apostle Paul, for instance, had Timothy under him but
Peter over him. Authority is, most of all about preservation and about
partaking of the anointing that flows downward. We need to be under authority
no matter who we are because there needs to be an inflow of anointing for us to
have an outflow of it.
In essence, there is no good authority in the
world anyway because it all falls short. So if God did not want us to learn
about authority He wouldn't have left us to live out our natural life before
going to Heaven.
Submitting to authority is
submitting to God.
MOSES GRIEVED GOD
Waters of Meribah
At the end of the period in the wilderness, around 1407 BC, the Bible
records another instance where again God asked Moses to provide water from a
rock. The first time had been before the Battle of Rephidim in Sinai four
decades earlier. At that time God had asked Moses to strike the rock and water
flowed out. Now, a year later, at Meribah, Moses again struck the rock two
times with his staff however, this time, no water flowed out. The particulars
of this episode often go unnoticed in Scripture studies.
This second instance God had instructed Moses to speak to the rock, not
to strike it. It is well known that the Beduin have struck rocks in the desert
and water had flowed from them. This is because there is sometimes years of
calcified sediment over a source of water which, when broken by a staff, will
release the water. Whether or not the first water from the rock at Rephidim was
such a case it is irrelevant. What matters is that Moses did not follow God’s
instructions to the letter. Also, there is the mild implication that it takes
more faith to speak to a rock and produce water than to hit a rock.
The 40 years in the wilderness, dealing with an unhappy population on
the verge of mutiny took a toll on Moses faith himself. We see, earlier, how
the circumstances were already weighing on physical body. Now his emotions had begun
responding. The great prophet had disregarded God’s instruction.
Why was God so grieved with Moses [2]
Moses had paid no notice and instead struck the rock as he had done
before instead of speaking. This had lifelong repercussions for him: God did
not allow him to go into the Promised Land, even though he had obeyed all other
commands and had fought so hard during this migration. God is not mean. God is
just.
There are 3 proposed reasons God was angry. Each reason is deeper:
1. Moses disobeyed God.
2. Striking the rock represented killing
Jesus and thus striking it twice was killing Jesus twice (Hebrews 6).
3. Moses failed to believe in the
use of our “secret weapon”: the tongue.
Moses was one of the most faithful persons
in the Bible, patient, long suffering leader. The violation was so grave that,
just for that, God kept Moses out if the promised land.
POINT A CROSS
This makes it clear that Jesus was that
rock, even all the way back in Deuteronomy.
The rock had been struck and wasn't going to be struck twice. Jesus had already
died and wasn't going to die twice.
When Moses stuck the rock this meant that Moses did not set God aside as
powerful. God is speaking of holiness but this is the same as power. In other
words, the power to forgive sins is the same as the power for all other
miracles.
Jesus makes this connection when he says:
Whether is
easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? [24]
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins,
(he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy
couch, and go into thine house.
God was not showing His power by having water come out. He had already
done that at Rephidim. This time, 40
years later, for the first time, God was educating people about the power of
the tongue; the power of faith. After knowing God up close for twice as long as
the Hebrew people Moses did not believe that words were enough. The power was
not the water, the power was the power of the tongue. God was teaching that
when we speak, as He spoke the world into existence, miracles happen!
God is looking for a higher standard with our words. Even being in The
New Covenant, if we don’t speak right we will be kept out of our “promised
land”, meaning, out of our promises.
The difference between striking and speaking to the rock is so important
that the Apostle Paul would later bring it up to admonish the church in
Corinth (1 Corinthians 10:1-11) where he urges the church not to be ignorant
of this history, pointing out that their ancestors were all under the cloud and
all passed through the sea, being figuratively baptized into Moses. They all
took the same spiritual nourishment from the spiritual rock that followed them.
PEOPLE GRIEVED GOD
The time spent in these barren deserts gave the people a chance to take
stock of what they had done. This was probably the time were morale was the
lowest. By this time the people had:
2. Rebelled against Moses;
3. Not trusted God’s provisions;
4. Taken actions in their own
hands under their own steam, under the flesh, instead of God.
The Hebrew people chose the path that led to the walk in the wilderness.
It was not God that condemned them to it. For us today, the church, in our
present dispensation of grace, this is warning to keep our heart from evil. We
should take this guideline very seriously: not to test or provoke God
and not to grumble.
ON LOCATION
Negev
Desert mountains
Sunset
in the Wilderness of Zin
Wilderness of Paran
Southern Paran after sunset
This second instance God had instructed Moses to speak to the rock, not
to strike it. It is well known that the Beduin have struck rocks in the desert
and water had flowed from them. This is because there is sometimes years of
calcified sediment over a source of water which, when broken by a staff, will
release the water. Whether or not the first water from the rock at Rephidim was
such a case it is irrelevant. What matters is that Moses did not follow God’s
instructions to the letter. Also, there is the mild implication that it takes
more faith to speak to a rock and produce water than to hit a rock.
