ACE #185: Your Head is as Hard as a Rock

There will be times when people will push your buttons; you will shake it off.  Then there will be other times when people will just drive you to a point of rage and it will difficult to recover quickly.  They will say something or do something that completely unnerves you.  Maybe they will do it and not know it.  Maybe they will do it intentionally. In Numbers 20, the children of Israel were thirsty.  They were so aggravated by their thirst, that they had “gathered together against Moses and Aaron” – their leaders.

In response, God instructed Moses to do four (maybe five) things:

1. Take your rod.
2. You and your brother gather the congregation together. (Maybe this is two steps because he had to fetch his brother first).
3. Speak to the rock in front of the people.
4. Give a drink to the people and their animals.

Notice that God did NOT tell Moses to speak to the people.  He told Moses to speak to the rock!  In anger, Moses scolded the people and struck the rock twice.  (That poor rock; it didn’t deserve that).  He was also being "hard headed".  And those errors cost Moses.  The text reads, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.'”

The lesson: Don’t let your anger or your emotions (with people or situations) cause you to disobey God to the point of hindering yourself from receiving God’s promises. 

Speak to your rock(s).

Numbers 20

Moses’ Error at Kadesh

20 Then the children of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the Wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh; and Miriam died there and was buried there.

² Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and Aaron. ³ And the people contended with Moses and spoke, saying: “If only we had died when our brethren died before the Lord! ⁴ Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our animals should die here? ⁵ And why have you made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink.” ⁶ So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and they fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them.

⁷ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ⁸ “Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals.” ⁹ So Moses took the rod from before the Lord as He commanded him.

¹⁰ And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” ¹¹ Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.

¹² Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

¹³ This was the water of Meribah,^[a] because the children of Israel contended with the Lord, and He was hallowed among them.

 

 

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