Numbers 11:23 “The LORD answered Moses: Is this beyond the LORD’s reach? You shall see now whether or not what I have said to you takes place.” This episode is about the quail miracle that God performed for the Israelites when they were in the wilderness. It is also about how sometimes if we want a miracle we first need to take a leap of faith and sometimes that might require us to look foolish. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Looking Foolish For Jesus
Numbers 11:23 “The LORD answered Moses: Is this beyond the LORD’s reach? You shall see now whether or not what I have said to you takes place.”
I have been reading two books lately that have really got me thinking about how I pray. One is called The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson, and the other is called The Cross and the Switch Blade by David Wilkerson. Both books have similar themes. One central theme seems to be praying boldly and specifically. They both talk about how if we want to see extraordinary things, we need to be willing to look foolish sometimes. Here is a short excerpt from the book The Circle Maker.
“Faith is the willingness to look foolish. Noah looked foolish building a boat in a desert. The Israelite army looked foolish, marching around Jericho, blowing trumpets. A shepherd boy named David looked foolish charging a giant with a sling shot. The Magi looked foolish tracking a star to Timbuktu. Peter looked foolish getting out of the boat in the sea of Galilee, and Jesus looked foolish wearing a crown of thorns. But the results speak for themselves. Noah was saved from the flood, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, David defeated Goliath, the magi discovered the Messiah, Peter walked on water, and Jesus was crowned king of kings. Foolishness is a feeling that Moses was very familiar with. He had to feel foolish going before the pharaoh and demanding that he let God's people go. He felt foolish raising his staff over the Red Sea, and he most certainly felt foolish promising meat to eat for the entire nation of Israel in the middle of the wilderness, but his willingness to look foolish resulted in epic miracles: the exodus of Israel out of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and the quail miracle.”
The quail miracle is what I want to talk to you about today. God had saved the Israelites from Egypt; he was providing a miracle for them every single day by providing manna, and yet they were not happy. They were complaining about not having meat to eat. They were talking about all the good things they had to eat when they were in Egypt and reminiscing as if those were good times because they had so much free food and fish. But they're forgetting that the food was free because they were not; they were slaves. In Numbers 11:10-15, Moses hears the people complaining and asks God why he treats him so badly as to give him the responsibility of all these people. Then in Numbers 11:18-21 God says, “To the people, however, you shall say: 'Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, when you shall have meat to eat. For in the hearing of the LORD you have cried, ‘If only we had meat for food! Oh, how well off we were in Egypt! Therefore, the LORD will give you meat to eat, and you will eat it, not for one day, or two days, or five, or ten, or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your very nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. For you have rejected the LORD who is in your midst, and in his presence you have cried, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”
This is one of those times I talked about earlier when sometimes faith requires you to look a little foolish. Moses did not understand how there could be enough meat to feed all these people for a whole month. He even questioned God about this. In Numbers 11:22, Moses asks, “The people around me include six hundred thousand soldiers; yet you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month.’ Can enough sheep and cattle be slaughtered for them? If all the fish of the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?” I find this remarkable and comforting. After all the truly extraordinary miracles Moses has seen, he still questions the Lord when he tells him something. I find it remarkable because I would think by now, he would know to just trust God. I find it comforting because if someone who is as close to the Lord as Moses was can question or doubt the Lord, then I don’t have to be so hard on myself when I do it. Moses could not see how this could happen; the math did not add up.
Then the next verse is one that we should ask ourselves often, especially when we are facing a situation that seems impossible. Numbers 11:23 says, “The LORD answered Moses: Is this beyond the LORD’s reach? You shall see now whether or not what I have said to you takes place.” Wow, is this beyond the Lord’s reach? What a great question! And I hope we all know the answer is No, nothing is beyond the Lord’s reach. I wonder what Moses was thinking in that moment when God said that to him. He was probably feeling the same way we feel when our parents ask us a question that we ought to know the answer to.
After this talk with God, Moses had a decision to make. Was he going to trust God and go out in front of his 600,000 soldiers and tell them that God would provide them with meat for a month? Would he put his reputation on the line to say something that he himself had trouble believing? I think a lot of us find ourselves in this situation more often than we would like to admit. We all know the power of the Holy Spirit and of God, and yet, we are hesitant to voice our prayers loud enough for others to hear. Or we are afraid to go out on a limb and pray a specific prayer out loud because what if God doesn’t come through? What if we look foolish? What will people think? Luckily, Moses did go out and tell the people what God had said. And you know what, God showed up. He always does.
In Numbers 11:31-32, it talks about this miracle, “There arose a wind from the LORD that drove in quail from the sea and left them all around the camp site, to a distance of a day’s journey and at a depth of two cubits upon the ground. So all that day, all night, and all the next day, the people set about to gather in the quail. Even the one who got the least gathered ten homers* of them. Then they spread them out all around the camp.” Not knowing what a cubit is, or how much a homer is, I had trouble picturing how magnificent this miracle actually was. I did not understand how much of a miracle this was until I heard it explained in the Circle Maker book. I thought I would explain it as the author Mark Batterson explained it. The area which was filled with quail was 10 times larger than Washington D.C., and the quail were piled 3 feet high. Each person collected at least 10 homers. If you multiply 10 homers by the 600,000 soldiers, you get 6 million homers of quail. Which means that the day it rained quail, it rained down at least 105 million quail. I had no idea it was so many. That seems so crazy to me. Can you even imagine what that must have looked like?
God provided this miracle for Moses and the people; however, he did not provide the miracle until after Moses went out and told the people what God had promised to them. What if Moses had decided not to stand up and tell the people what God had said? Would they still have gotten the miracle? Oftentimes, if we want to experience a miracle, we need to be willing to do something first. Take some action in faith. Oftentimes, that action on our part may make us look foolish or feel uncomfortable. Faith definitely asks us to step outside of our comfort zone at times. If we aren’t willing to risk looking foolish, we may not get our miracles. You may be nervous to pray to God for certain things because you are worried that your prayers won’t get answered. But remember this, 100% of the prayers never prayed don’t get answered. If we don’t ask for it, then we don’t give God the chance to answer it. We don’t give him the chance to show off his power and glory. The next time you are unsure how God could answer your prayers, remember these words from God: “Is this beyond the Lord’s reach?”
Dear heavenly father, I ask that you bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you give us the courage and boldness we need to do as you ask. Lord Jesus, we ask that you give us a holy boldness to look foolish or step outside of our comfort zone if that's what you're asking us to do. We ask that you help us take a chance on you, Lord. We know you always show up, and we know you always come through. Lord, we believe, please help our unbelief. Lord, give us the faith of Moses and Noah and Joshua and all those who came before us. Lord help us to have unwavering faith in you, help us to ask you for whatever it is we need without hesitation. Lord Jesus, you are amazing, and we're so thankful for all you do for us. We love you so very much, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, amen.