Most of us are familiar with the events of Numbers 20 at Kadesh. The Israelites were whining and murmuring (once again) because there was no water.

We can see here that Moses started out well…He and Aaron headed straight to the tent of meeting and fell on their faces before the LORD in prayer. The glory of the LORD appeared. The LORD gave them clear directions. But then what happened?

Hmm…Moses didn’t finish so well there, did he?

I can see myself in that. I start off well and for various reasons don’t always end up finishing well. My flesh takes over…

I also know I’ve had times I’ve been tempted at times to hit the rock, when I was only to speak to it.
I must say I have spoken to the rock when I’ve only been supposed to speak to it.
I lost patience and did not trust God to work in His way and in His time.
I reaped what I’ve sown.

I know I’ve been tempted in recent days to hit the rock, when I’m only supposed to speak to it.
I know how easy it would be to hit the rock. Too easy.
I’ve been close to hitting it…very close…too close.
I’m in danger of losing patience and not trusting God to work in His way and in His time.
LORD God, guard my mouth, hold my hand back. Help me to trust You to work in Your way and Your time.
Help me to be obedient to Your commandments.

(That’s not my main emphasis today here, yet these are things I’ve been struggling with once again, so I’m including them here…)

We know the rest of Moses’ story. Because Moses struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it, God spoke these words to Moses:

Any time we don’t do things in God’s prescribed way, the LORD is not hallowed and there will be consequences for that…Yes, God is gracious to us, and He uses all things (even our sins) for our good and His glory, yet it is true that we will reap what we sow, and, as a result, there may very well be dire consequences (e.g.- consider David’s sin with Bathsheba and the ensuing cover-up).

If we stopped right there and focused on the fact that Moses wasn’t able to lead Israel into the promised land, not even to put a foot there, this would be a very depressing story…(Yes, I know Moses ended up there at the Transfiguration…)

I know if I were Moses I would be tempted to say, “Ok, LORD, that’s enough. If I can’t get into the promised land, why bother?” (self-centered much?)

I will confess to you that my promised land is revival coming to the Church. And I can too easily make that an idol.

If I knew I would never see revival come in my lifetime, I know I would be tempted to say, “Ok, LORD, that’s enough. If I’m not going to see revival, why bother? Why bother if I won’t get to cross over Jordan?”

(Yes, I know Moses did pray to the Lord about his not being able to go into the promised land in Deut. 3, see more below.)

However, that’s not the attitude we see in Moses after Kadesh. After his disobedience in hitting the rock, in spite of the LORD’s clear proclamation that Moses would not be going into the promised land, we find Moses picking up in obedience to the LORD’s commands.

Here are a few instances. (You can go and read the surrounding context of each.)

(I’d just like to note that this pattern of obedience is only a continuation of Moses’ previous obedience to the LORD prior to hitting the rock at Kadesh. From the day at the burning bush (yes, granted, there were some questions then, I know…), to speaking to Aaron, to the encounters with Pharaoh, to the preparations for the Passover, to the Exodus from Egypt, to the Red Sea, to Marah, to Massah and Meribah, to Mt. Sinai, to the golden calf, to the tabernacle preparations, to the priestly garments, to disciplining the rebellious…which really hit close to home, his own sister Miriam, brother Aaron and nephews Nadab and Abihu, and so on…)

As we look at those verses above, we can see that Moses’ obedience doesn’t just involve Moses, but also involves other people and very often the whole nation of Israel. What would have happened if Moses just decided to chuck it?

Though our obedience always has implications, let’s consider what would have happened to those countless other souls if Moses hadn’t obeyed as God commanded. We certainly must be humbled and sobered when we consider the wide-reaching and long-term implications of our disobedience (and obedience).

Among God’s commands after Moses’ disobedience at Kadesh, there are a couple I find really challenging.

First is the command of the Lord to Moses to strip his deceased brother Aaron of his garments and put them on Aaron’s son Eleazar. Miriam had died not long before the incident at Kadesh and now Aaron dies. How devastating would that be?

Yet what was Moses’ response?

Second is the command to Moses to commission his successor, Joshua:

Moses’ response?

Moses did as the LORD commanded.

Um, yeah, I admit I’d have a tough time with that one. Well, I don’t think it wouldn’t be that bad if I knew I was going to enter into the promised land…But Moses wasn’t going, the LORD had made that clear – yet we see no hint of resentment or jealousy in Moses.

The LORD said it and Moses did it.

Will I? Will it be said of me:

I confess I still don’t have that kind of heart, or the heart of John the Baptist (well, really the heart of Jesus…Philippians 2…):

But am I, a servant of the LORD, to dictate to the LORD the terms of my service to Him?

I am praying God might circumcise my heart to do as He commands. May He give me sufficient grace when He places me in such situations. I am praying His Spirit might work in me so I might not be jealous but rather joyful, that I might be rejoicing rather than resenting…and I might willingly submit myself to serve the LORD however and wherever the He commands. I am praying my joy might be complete as I see others increase as I decrease.

As I was in my car today, I drove near the workplace of a friend who works because she has to; she would relish to be in my position. I don’t have to work outside the home; my husband has been so gracious and generous to me, and our God has been so gracious and generous to us in providing for all our needs and far beyond that. So as I considered that, God hit me with His divine 2 x 4, and I began to come to my senses and cry out (once again):

So what else would I rather be doing with my time than studying and teaching and blogging the Word of God and praying for revival?
What else is more wonderful?
Who else is more wonderful than You, Lord?
Don’t let me squander this opportunity You’ve given me!
Don’t let me waste my life!
Help me to finish well like Moses did!

These things have been weighing on my mind because of an account I recently read of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ (ML-J) last days. This is in part what led to write the following in my last update:

I also have some things I’ve been contemplating about ministry which at first I found daunting, but God has allowed me to settle in and trust Him in those and ponder them in my heart for the time being and trust Him to show me what I need to know when I need to know it and to know that He never gives us more than He equips us to do.

Here’s Iain Murray writing of a conversation he had with ML-J less than a month before his death (“The Fight of Faith,” 773):

I scarcely ever recall ML-J drawing any parallel between his own ministry and that of any Christian figure of a past age. But one parallel which he did draw in conversation on February 5, 1981 is a striking illustration of what was uppermost in his heart. ‘I feel in many way,’ he said, ‘like Griffith Jones of  Llanddowror.’ The man to whom he hoped to possess a resemblance was a little-remembered figure, born in Carmarthenshire in 1683 and significant not so much for what he achieved as for what he did in preparing the way for others. Griffith Jones was ‘the morning star’ of the great awakening of the eighteenth century in Wales, the forerunner of the better-known men who were to follow. The comparison tells us a great deal. Dr Lloyd-Jones had yearned for something in his own day which, when he spoke these words, he knew he was not going to be permitted to see. But his mind was not on the question of how posterity would remember him, it was on the success of the gospel. I responded, ‘As you have often said, God’s calendar is not ours’, but, only half-hearing me, he went on: ‘I never thought it was going to take so long. I thought I was going to see great revival but I am not complaining. It wasn’t God’s time and this preparatory work had to be done.’ If he could die believing that he had been permitted to do something to prepare the way for better men and greater days, that was enough.

I read these words and started to weep. I’ve only had a burden for revival for just over a year and I’m already impatient…yet the Doctor had such a burden for years. As I read and listen to his sermons on revival, I sometimes cry; he’d even seen some revival in his first pastorate in Wales during the early 1930′s, but then nothing after that on any large scale, but he longed for more since he’d experienced first-hand in that congregation and in his own life. He was so burdened to see revival come to the Church because he saw the ruins. God has opened my eyes to those ruins and I am now burdened to see revival come in much the same way.

Like ML-J I am yearning for something because I’ve had a taste of it in my own life and have seen that in the lives of a few others. I don’t yet know if I’ll see wide scale revival in my lifetime. I’m over fifty now; I don’t know how many years I have left here, I don’t know when or if the Lord might choose to come down from on high with power to revive the Church. I don’t know when He might return to take us home. But I do know (and I’ve already known this deep down for a while now) that part of my ministry is a preparation ministry. When I read those words, they were hard for me to swallow because that was a reminder to me that I must have the grace to step aside and commission the Joshuas who are younger to take up the work, and I may very well not be allowed to cross over Jordan.

We see the account of Moses’ conversation with the LORD in Deuteronomy 3:23-36…Moses knew God was great and mighty, so he prayed he might be able to cross over Jordan.

26  But the LORD was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the LORD said to me, ‘Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again. 27  Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and look at it with your eyes, for you shall not go over this Jordan. 28  But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see.’

That’s serious stuff. The LORD was clear there.

I can’t ever demand I get to cross over Jordan, but only trust God’s goodness to me and to know He will not withhold from me anything good. If it is good for me to cross over Jordan, to see revival in my lifetime, I will see it.

My first concern must be with the glory of God and the success of the Gospel.

I will say that I know there are some Joshuas out there, and I get teary-eyed now as I think of them and mention that now. I am praying for many young people who don’t even know I’m praying for them. I don’t know what will come out of that, but as God directs me, I’m continuing to pray for them. I thank God for those young men and women, and I pray God give me the grace to minister with perseverance until my final breath, knowing full well I am doing preparatory work for the Lord to come. May God give me the grace to persevere, to plant and water the seeds God gives me, even though I may not see much of the harvest in this lifetime. Yes, I confess that I would love to see wide-spread revival, I would love to go over the Jordan into the promised land, but if that is not the Lord’s will for me, may I persevere in obedience until the very end, like Moses. So long as the LORD gives me breath may I cry out:

Isaiah 40
3  …“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4  Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5  And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

May it be said of me:
 

Karen did as the LORD commanded.

May it be said of all of us:

We did as the LORD commanded.

If I can die believing that I have been permitted to do something to prepare the way for better men and greater days, may that be enough for me!

 
I read George Whitefield’s Journals last year and have wanted to reread them (I’ve dabbled in them a bit since that time), but I did take them along with me on retreat last week (see here and here for more on my time away).

Luke Tyerman (quoted by Iain Murray in the Introduction to George Whitefield’s Journals, p. 19) wrote this about Whitefield:

After reading those words I wrote the following reflection/prayer in the margin and at the bottom of the page:

Amen.

So there I was praying in faith for half a dozen workers, trusting God to work through that small number…I thought that was a pretty strong prayer of faith…

But God showed me otherwise…

During one the services I attended while I was away, Scripture was read from Isaiah 51…

I had been asking the Lord for a half a dozen men and had been thinking that was a bold step of faith since in the big scheme of things half a dozen men is not very many, yet God rebuked and humbled me and reminded me all He needs is a single man. He doesn’t need half a dozen men! He needs but one!

Aren’t God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours?

We think (I think, anyhow) we certainly need more than one. We think (I think, anyhow) we need half a dozen men (or more, often many more). I continue to fall into the trap that we need more, more, more. More people to pray. More people to preach the Word. More. More. Grrr!

Is anything too hard for the Lord? No, of course not!

Can the Lord save by many or by few? Yes and yes!

Is not the Lord among His people wherever they go? Certainly yes!

Is the Lord’s arm shortened or His power diminished because the numbers of men He chooses to enlist in His work are small? No, of course not!

On a retreat last spring God pretty much reminded me of this very same thing as I read Joshua 3 and reflected on His call to Israel to step out in faith:

Once more I’ve been reminded of how small my view of God is, how puny my faith is, and how I continue to limit God.

Did not God’s Spirit move and bless and multiply through a single soul like Abraham our father?

Did not God’s Spirit move and bless and multiply through a single soul, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Cannot God’s Spirit move and bless and multiply through a single one of us today?

I confess I find that hard to believe at times. (“O, Karen, ye of little faith!”)

Yesterday on my other blog I was reflecting on Kingdom vision and posted some quotes from David Livingstone (from Rob Mackenzie’s biography “David Livingstone: The Truth behind the Legend”). Here’s one of them:

I know Livingstone meant this in a different way, but my friends in Christ, aren’t we are that seed being sown, aren’t we that small stone…

Yes, it’s true that we are the least of all seeds now and we are a small stone now…seemingly insignificant in the eyes of men (and in our own eyes)…

However, because we are called by God and because we are filled with the Spirit of God … Will we not grow a mighty tree? Will we not fill the whole earth?

Has God not called us like He did Abraham … so He might bless and multiply us?

We see how we are so much like Abraham. Abraham was weak and powerless, his body was as good as dead and Sarah’s womb was barren (see the last part of Romans 4) and yet we see how he trusted God’s word and was justified by faith and lived by faith and God wrought through him a great nation, of which we are now a part by faith in Christ.

This is the same type of faith we’re to have in God and in the promises of God. Yes, we are as good as dead. Yes, we are the least of seeds now. Yes, we are the small stone now … Yes, that’s us. But what do we know about God? Is not our God is the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Romans 4:17.

Just as the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, died, was buried and rose again from the dead to be the firstfruits of many creatures, so too we have been buried with Christ and raised by His resurrection power and filled with His Spirit so we might bear fruit to God – much fruit, fruit that will last (John 15). As we put to death our fleshly desires and live the life by His Spirit He intends, as we die to our own interests and live to His Kingdom interests, to seek to serve rather than be served, there is no doubt the Lord Christ will bear fruit through us (e.g.- see Romans 6). That is God’s intent for each of His children, not just the George Whitefields of the world, not just the ordained pastors, not just the worship leaders, etc., etc. If we are Christ’s joint-heirs, we cannot help but bear fruit like our Brother because we have His same fruit-bearing Spirit dwelling within us.

As Abraham was but one, we are but few when He calls us, but God’s intent has always been the same for His people: to bless us and multiply us and bear fruit through us throughout the whole earth! Was that not Jesus’ commission to us? Has our Lord not given us all we need to bear fruit as He commands?

Returning back to the title of this post…

Perhaps it is too many. Perhaps not. No matter. Let us ask our Lord first and foremost to circumcise each of our hearts by His Spirit so we might die to self to live to Him, to hate our lives in this world so we might keep them for eternal life, so we might bear much fruit to His glory. By His grace, may we trust His ways and His timing, knowing that He is working all things for His glory, whether it takes 30, 40 or 50 years or more, for we can be assured that He waits only so He might be highly exalted (Isaiah 30:18)! And, by His grace, may we (I) not limit Him but leave the numbers to Him! For indeed He doeth all things well, does He not?

If you have a burden and calling from God to pray for revival, please visit my website tent of meeting, dedicated to prayer for revival.

Related:

• blogging, view count, comments, numbers and the glory of God
• God uses men with “no outstanding abilities”
• Can anything good come out of Xanga?
• Bible Reading-Mark 4: (6) Kingdom-Obsessed People persevere in scattering seed
• do the work of a WHAT? eee – van – gel – ist! eeek!
• Bible Reading-Luke 5:1-11: Christ’s Sufficiency as We Fish
• the Master’s rebuke: O, ye of little faith

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.