Only Do Not Rebel Against the LORD - a podcast by Rev. W. Reid Hankins

Sermon preached on Luke Sermon preached on Numbers 14:1-38 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/09/2022 in Novato, CA.















Sermon Manuscript







I thought it would be fitting given that we have two ordinations scheduled for today to take a break from Luke and bring you a sermon about godly leadership in the church. Today we will have the opportunity to set apart our brother Jim Wright to the office of ruling elder and our brother Rene Tovar to the office of deacon. Those are two different offices with different job descriptions in the new covenant church. Neither of those offices are specifically addressed in this passage. But today’s passage does teach something of church leadership that would apply to all the officers in the church. It speaks to what kind of leaders we need in general. And it also speaks to how we as Christians ought to respond to all our leadership.







Let us begin then today by considering the background to this passage. The book of Numbers is in the aftermath of Israel’s exodus from Egyptian slavery. But let’s go farther back in time than that. Remember, how God began to set apart a people holy to himself back in Genesis through the patriarch Abraham. Of all the peoples on the earth, God called out to Abraham and promised him in Genesis 12 that he would bring forth a great people through him. God also promised Abraham that he would give that people the Land of Canaan. The vision was of a special people that would live holy unto God in that Promised Land. That people would worship God and ultimately bring God’s blessings to all the world.







Yet, these promises seemed slow to be fulfilled at first. Initially, Abraham’s family was small. And while they moved to the Promised Land, the first few generations were really nothing more than sojourners and aliens in the land. So, Abraham had Isaac, who then had Jacob, who then had twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. Yet, that’s when during a famine they ended up relocating to Egypt. After a number of generations, they then found themselves slaves of the Egyptians, forced to make bricks for them, and unable to leave and return to the land that God had promised then in Canaan. And yet, while they were there in Egypt, one of God’s promises was starting to be fulfilled. Israel had grown to be a large nation of people. Yet, as slaves in Egypt, they were not able to take possession of that land God had promised then in Canaan.







But that is when God raised up the leadership of Moses and Aaron. God used Moses and Aaron to bring Israel out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Egypt was not willing for Israel to leave, but God worked the ten plagues to bring judgment on stubborn Egypt. Finally, they let Israel go, and we call that the Exodus. But then Israel had to get from Egypt back to Promised Land. So then, the book of Exodus describes the people making their way through the wilderness to Mt. Sinai where God gave them the Ten Commandments through Moses and established his covenant with them, again through the mediation of Moses. The book of Leviticus then describes God instructing them on how they were to be worshipping him, especially through Aaron and his descendants serving as priests. Finally, we get to the book of Numbers and the people set out through the wilderness of Sinai on route to the Land of Canaan which God had promised to give his people. They finally make it all the way back to the edge of the Promised Land.







Israel then sent twelve spies to spy out the land. That is recorded in the chapter just before ours today, in Numbers 13. They spy out the land come back and give their report. They all agree that the land is a good land, a land full of milk and honey.

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