Preachers and Pride

You read the title right.  Preachers have pride.  Men have pride.  All people deal with it to some degree, I believe men more and preachers...well!  Israel was in the wilderness.  Their water had run out.  Man can do without a lot of things, but water is not one of them.  We need our water.  Water, the lack of water, water supply and who controls it has fostered many a conflict and even war in world history.

When Israel found herself in this situation she began to grumble.  However, her grumbling was not against God, but Moses and Aaron.  They had just buried Miriam.  Moses and Aaron were grieving.  The enemy saw his chance.  The people came to Moses and Aaron and said, "If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord.!  Why then have you brought the Lord's assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here?"

Moses and Aarons next step was a crucial one.  They fell on their faces before the Lord at the tent of meeting.  God appeared and told them what to do. Whew! That was close.  Too many times man gets in the flesh when he is weak, spouts off at the mouth and blows it.  It happens in marriage, it happens in business and yes it happens in the church. 

Hold your horses because one right step can be followed by several wrong steps and that is exactly what happens here.  Bottom line: God gave Moses and Aaron instructions as to what to do.  His Way would have resulted in His Glory and their need being met.  However, Moses flew off the handle at God's people and in a fit of rage disobeyed God.  Now God came through, but Moses and Aaron did not get to go in.

At Rephidim God had instructed Moses to strike a rock to provide water.  He did and God provided.  Here God instructed Moses to "speak" to the rock, but once again Moses "struck" the rock.  It's not that God was not clear, but Moses apparently was not listening.  Why?  What happened?  

Some observations:
1.  The enemy will attack at a time of great defeat or great victory.
2.  We can go before God and be in His presence, experience His power, hear His voice, yet get up and go out in our strength and perform in our flesh.
3.  God calls us to trust Him fully - not in part.
4.  There are dire consequences to not trusting God.

How many times has my flesh and selfish pride resulted in me striking the rock and in essence slap God in the face. When I do I attempt to rob God of His Glory.  I say "attempt" because I am not sure that I can rob God of His Glory...He Is God.  But my actions are an attempt by my flesh to upstage Him.  I am in fact saying that my way is better than God's Way.  Imagine the arrogance of that.

Preacher, no matter what, no matter when... when we go before the Lord we must wait long enough to let God get us out of the way.  We must stay long enough to let God so fill us with Himself that there is no room for ourselves.  We must wait long and lone until the old man is dead and buried (at least for the time being) so that God is all in all, over all and through all.

Preacher, look at what Moses did and let it be a warning to all of us.  He gave his congregation a tongue lashing.  He reacted to them and their bellyaching instead of listening to God and His instruction.  He spoke in anger when He should have let God speak through Him.  He missed out on God's best and never experienced Canaan.  And it all came down to simply Trusting God.