#DailyDevotion Why Reading The Old Testament Is Important
Easter Week 7 Monday
Read Num 14:26–45
Num 14:27-32 “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. (28) Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: (29) your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, (30) not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. (31) But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. (32) But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
St Paul writes, 1Co 10:9-12 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, (10) nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. (11) Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (12) Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
The Old Testament is important to us because it gives us examples how those who preceded us either were pleasing to God or were not. We can either use the wisdom taught us here and follow those who were pleasing or we can forget the lessons earned for us by those had fallen and repeat their mistakes.
Again we are shown the mistake of grumbling against God. You may say, “I’m not grumbling against God.” You probably grumble against God more than you know. Whenever are complaining about this or that circumstance in our lives and we don’t look to God to be the solution of our problems trusting he will do something about it, then you are grumbling against God. Some pretend not to grumble but are inwardly anyway. They say, “No use complaining about it, can’t do anything about it anyway.” But they are wrong, they can pray to the one who has all power and wishes to use on our behalf.
The Israelites grumbled against God by grumbling about their pastor Moses. They didn’t trust the word he had preached to them that the Lord was giving them the land they had spied out. Instead they believe the naysayers who did the spying but didn’t believe the word of the Lord. It is unfortunate there are people like that in our churches. They don’t believe the good news the pastor preaches or teachers so they sow discontent in the members and soon a ministry is destroyed. But the Lord is not unawares. He knows who trust and him and who is fighting against them. How he will work that out in their midst we do not know but if we look to the Israelites, he let that whole generation die in the wilderness. They did not enter the Promised Land.
Let us then turn to Christ and trust in the mercy of God he wants to give us. Let us believe that Jesus will return for us and bring us mightily into that new heavens and new earth. We should not live as if this world is our end and there isn’t anything left after it. We are called to live a life of Life and not called to live a life of Death. We who belong to Christ live in his promise and what we can learn from the Old Testament is God keeps his promises.
Lord Jesus Christ, grant us such faith that we may not grumble at the circumstances of our life but rather call upon you and enlist others to call upon you to visit us in our distress. Amen.