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by Bob Fraley
Text: Numbers 16:41-50 
Sermon in a Sentence: If present trends continue unchecked, the devil’s grip on our nation will grow tighter and tighter. That’s why the faithful of this generation must take seriously their role of intervening for our children and grandchildren.
It must have been an awful time to be alive. Of all the generations to have been a part of, this would’ve been one of the worst. If you did your assigned Scripture reading this past week, you probably can guess what I’m talking about.
We are in a Spiritual Adventure called The Remarkable Revelation: 50 Days to Prepare for What’s Ahead. This is Sunday Four of eight, and, yes, you can still purchase an Adventure Journal. You can get that plus the small book most everyone is reading and talking about, called The Day That Changed America by Bob Fraley at ________________.
Rather than starting your journal work at Day 1, I would suggest that you pick up where the rest of the congregation is, at Day 22, or Sunday 4. In addition, start immediately reading the seven chapters of Bob Fraley’s short book as soon as you are able.
Spiritual Adventures are times for accelerated, measurable and lasting growth in your Christian life.
After Israel’s twelve spies explored the land of Canaan, the general populace chose to identify with the majority report. Essentially that was, “It’s as wonderful a place as we were told, but the people are powerful and we’ll never defeat them.”
Numbers 13:33 states, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Here’s chapter 14, verses 1 through 4: “That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! 
Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?’
And they said to each other, ‘We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.’
By this time the Lord had heard enough complaining, and He made an emphatic decree that everyone 20 years old or more would never ever enter this good land that He had sworn to make their home. The only exceptions were Joshua and Caleb, whose minority report said, “We should go for it!” God speaks in verses 31 and 32. Listen:
“As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you—your bodies will fall in this desert.”
What an awful position to be in. A desert isn’t a pleasant place to live out all the rest of your days. And what a discouraging situation, when you know you’re basically just marking time until you die. Trying to make adjustments, the people decided to make amends by going to war on their own, but it didn’t work, and they were soundly beaten.
Instead of then choosing to live their lives for the benefit of their children and grandchildren, their proverbial pattern of grumbling resumes. That’s when we get the account most of you read in Numbers 16 about the rebellion of Korah. I’ll pick up the ongoing narrative following that rebellion with verse 41 and the passage you were to have read yesterday:
End of Short Preview for Sermon #4 | 
