How long …?
“The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? … "How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.” (Numbers 14:11, 27).
When we look at Psalms 13:1-2, this is how the psalmist cries out to the Lord: “How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” After I meditated on these verses, I began to pray “O God, how long …?” With expectation of God’s answer of my prayer, I usually pray like this: ‘O God, when are you going to fulfill Your promise to me?(Jn. 6:1-15), ‘O God, when are You going to Your promise to our church?(Mt. 16:18), ‘How long should I wait? How long?’. I pray, I expect and I wait upon God to answer my prayers according to His will and in His time. Thus, I pray to Him “How long …?”. As I do so, I feel like what the psalmist have felt, that is God is hiding His face from me(Ps.13:1). And the indwelling Spirit tells me that the reason why holy God is not answering my prayers and hiding His face from me has to do with my unconfessed sins. So I must confess my sins to Him and Him alone. And I must ask God for His mercy and His forgiveness.
When we look at today’s passage, Numbers 14:11, 27, we can see God saying to Moses “How long …?” three times. In Psalms 13:1-2, it was the psalmist who said “How long …?” four times as he prayed to God. But in today’s passage, Numbers 14: 11, 27, God is saying to Moses “How long …?” three times regarding the Israelites.
The first “How long …?” is “How long will these people treat me with contempt?”(v.11).
The Israelites in the Exodus time did not listen to Joshua’s and Caleb’s report after they came back from spying the land of Canaan (13:30, 14:7-9). Rather, they listened to other ten spies’ “bad report” (14:36-37) and that night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud (v.1). Their tears were the tears of grumbling (v.2) and the tears of rebellion (vv.3-4). The Israelites not only grumbled against Moses and Aaron (v.2), they tried to choose a leader and go back to Egypt (v.4). God who saw their tears of grumbling and heard their voice of rebellion told Moses “How long will these people treat me with contempt?”(v.11). When I think about what God said to Moses regarding the Israelites, I think God is saying the same thing to the church. The reason I think this way is because we the church are shedding the tears of grumbling and are lifting the voice of rebellion against God. We who are now heading toward the true promise land, that is Heaven, are continually grumbling and trying to go back to our old non-believer’s life style as we live in this desert. Like the Israelites, we grumble because there is no water, no meat and etc.. It seems like we are not satisfy with anything. Thus, we complain habitually about our situation and people around us. We do so especially when we face difficulties in our life. Thus, we even grumble against God. And we even ask God to take away our life. I wonder what God would think when we pray like that in tears. Aren’t our tears of prayer like the Israelites’ – tears of grumbling and tears of rebellion? How can we grumble about the difficulties in this desert life after God has brought us out of the kingdom of Satan and is leading us to the Kingdom of God? The greater sin that we tend to commit against God is not only that we constantly look back to our old non-believer life style but we actually go back to our old sinful nature life style. Wouldn’t God say “How long will these people treat me with contempt?”
The second “How long …?” is “How long will they refuse to believe in me?”(v.11).
The Israelites in the Exodus time refused to believe in God even though they saw all the miraculous signs the God performed among them. Although they saw God’s ten plagues while they were in Egypt, God’s miraculous of making Red Sea into land, water coming out of the rock, manna from sky and so on, they refused to believe in God. That’s why they were scared of the people who lived in Canaan. Although the people in Canaan are powerful (13:28) and are of great size (v.32), shouldn’t they believe that Almighty God is able to defeat them and give victory to the Israelites? But the Israelites refused to do so. Instead they grumbled out of their unbelief. Thus God said to Moses regarding the Israelites “How long will they refuse to believe in me?”(v.11). I think God is saying the same thing us. The reason is because we refuse to believe in God in spite of all the miraculous sings He has performed among us. You may wonder and say “When do we, the believers, refuse to believe in God?” But if we carefully examine our heart and what comes out of it through our mouth, we will be surprised by the fact that we don’t believe in God. For example, we say many times that ‘I don’t think he will get out of his drug addiction,’ ‘He will never be changed,’ ‘I don’t think I can change my sinful habit,’ etc.. Although we claim to believe in God, we don’t believe in Him in our hearts. That’s why we grumble against situation, against people and even against God. Romans 14:23 comes to my mind: “and everything that does not come from faith is sin.” We, the church, are not walking in faith. Although we say “Amen” and “I believe” through our mouth, our hearts are filled with unbelief. And when God see us, wouldn’t He say ‘How long will you refuse to believe in me?’
The third “How long …?” is “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against me?”(v.27).
The Israelites in the Exodus time kept on grumbling against Moses and against God again and again. Although they received God’s gracious gift of salvation from Egypt through God’s many miraculous signs, the Israelites grumbled against God. Although they received God’s blessing of guidance, providence and protection, instead of giving thanks to God they grumbled against God. They even offered a prayer of grumbling to God in tears (v.1). Thus God said to Moses regarding them “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against me?” This word of God reminds the truth that God is longsuffering. When we keep on committing sins against God over and over again, God is patience and longsuffering with us until we repent and return to Him. Did we ever think about the fact that God is long suffering because we are keep on sinning against Him? Can we imagine God who saw His own begotten Son dying on the cross for such sinner like us and heard him crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”(Mk.15:14) is long suffering because of our continual sins against Him? How long should God bear with us?
How long will we treat God with contempt? How long will we refuse to believe in God? How long will we make God to bear with such evil congregation like us? I hope not until we will know God’s opposition (v.34).
‘O God, how long will you be patience with us?’
James Kim