[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected]. good morning.
[00:00:15] If you don't know me, my name is Attilio.
[00:00:18] I present as an Englishman, but I'm Italian and the proof of that is if you looked at my DNA under a microscope, like strands of spaghetti.
[00:00:32] Let's start with a book review.
[00:00:40] Now, I know it's very dangerous to put that up and stand next to it.
[00:00:46] Not the best selfie, is it?
[00:00:49] Anyone read this book?
[00:00:52] It's meant to be very good.
[00:00:54] It's got 100% rating on Amazon out of five people.
[00:01:02] It's an unauthorized guide to how CEOs get rich by crashing their companies.
[00:01:09] I think it tells you more about the attitude of the author than it does about the CEOs, doesn't it?
[00:01:15] Now, the truth is, when we've probably all said something like this about our boss or a politician or a leader in the church, And if you are a line manager, a team leader, a supervisor, a director, it's probably been said about you.
[00:01:42] When I took over one of my first ever teams, I had a disagreement with a guy in my team and he went above my head to my boss. And I only knew about this because I found an email on the printer.
[00:01:55] Yeah. Oh, no, gets worse.
[00:01:59] He said whatever it was he was disagreeing about, he said, I've approached him, but the pretend Italian doesn't agree with me.
[00:02:12] Another time I knew this young woman, she'd just graduated and she wanted to approach my company to work for marketing, just holiday job.
[00:02:21] And so she emailed them and I found her email on the printer and it said, it must be really irritating working with my dad.
[00:02:32] Morrisini is not a very common name.
[00:02:35] It's the last time she got a networking lead.
[00:02:40] What we're going to talk about today is about someone who said this, or not exactly this, but something like this about Moses, right? He challenged the leader of the people of Israel. He said, who put you in charge? And it's a really dark story because he managed to get. His name was Korah. He managed to get people around him to support him, to challenge Moses and. And God judged Korah and destroyed him and his family.
[00:03:11] It's a difficult story to get into, but let's see how we go.
[00:03:16] Now, if you've been with us for the past few months, you'll know that we've been going through the timeline of the Bible. We're trying to just fit it all together. Because many people who don't know the Bible or we might have forgotten, we need to refresh ourselves in that it's not a selection of random stuff. And if you do just turn the pages, you're as likely to come to a fight or a commandment or some poetry or sometimes Jesus saying nice warm, fuzzy things, and sometimes Jesus saying some challenging things. But what we want to show is the whole thing hangs together.
[00:03:53] And there's many, many ways to summarise the Bible. One way would be it tells us the truth about God, that he has high standards for the way that we should behave towards each other. And to him, it tells us the truth about humanity. We just don't do that. And our desperate, overwhelming, deep seated need to be rescued by God's love in Jesus. Okay, that's what we're trying to do as we go through the timeline.
[00:04:20] So today we're coming to the story of Korah.
[00:04:25] And I want you to imagine it's like a box set. You come into an episode that you've never seen before.
[00:04:32] Any of you skip the recap when you watch your box sets.
[00:04:36] Yeah, you skip the recap. Unfortunately, this won't let me skip the recap.
[00:04:41] In fact, it's a miracle if I can get it to move to the next slide. Aha. There's this recap. Okay, so here's the recap. I'm not going to go through every little bit of that, but basically just to say the people of Israel are bound together because they claim, quite rightly, they are descended from Abraham and they worship one God. Now, the God that they worship is very, very different to the other gods on offer at the time. This God is spirit. He's not part of nature. He's not a star, he's not a planet, he's not an animal.
[00:05:15] This God is not a superhuman human.
[00:05:19] He's not a dead ancestor that's gone up to heaven somehow and become a God.
[00:05:24] He's not a God that comes down and sort of reproduces with humans to then give rise to other gods. He is way above everything. And there's only one.
[00:05:35] And these people, the people of Israel, through their family lineage from Abraham worshipping this one God, had been slaves. But now they're freed. And where we're going to come to today is where the number eight would be. If you're counting along the people of Israel, they've come out of slavery. They are now in the desert setting up their new community.
[00:06:00] So we're going to go into the story of Korah. Okay, I've got three slides. If you try and follow it along, you won't be able to because I've paraphrased it to find a timeline through it. And I'll be giving some commentary as we go.
[00:06:15] So here's the story of Cora, and we're going to handle it like selfish leaders, complaining followers and faithful workers. So here's my first of three slides.
[00:06:28] Korah, Dathan and Abram became insolent. Now, you don't have to be a professor of English to know that whatever insolent means, it can't be good because. Because we know the end of the story. Korah is judged and destroyed.
[00:06:43] He revolted against Moses. With him were 250 Israelite men, well known community leaders. So 253 rebels.
[00:06:53] They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, you have gone too far. The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves up above the Lord's assembly? And Korah is using a very clever but very dishonest argument. He's saying, who put you in charge? We're all holy. God loves us all. It's a very clever argument. But as we know from the later context, Korah is just after a power grab. He's not wanting a discussion about theology.
[00:07:29] When Moses heard this, he fell face down.
[00:07:32] A humble response. A humble response. He gets angry later on, but he's humble now.
[00:07:38] Then he said to Korah and all his followers, in the morning, the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses, he will cause to come near to him. So he sets a test.
[00:07:53] Moses says, God is going to judge which one of us is meant to be in charge. Now, this is a high rank risk strategy because Moses knows God does what God wants to do.
[00:08:05] There was a time in Moses past when he decided it was his job to free the slaves. He tried it, it went wrong and he became an exile for decades and decades. God didn't step in like some cosmic butler and say, I will help you. So Moses knows this is a high risk strategy, saying, let God decide who should be in charge.
[00:08:28] Moses also said to Korah, now listen, isn't it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near himself to do the work at the Lord's tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? He's saying, Korah, you have got a good job.
[00:08:48] God has selected you and your family to be ministers. And at the tabernacle, as we set up our new community, which is a spiritual community, you have got one of the best jobs.
[00:09:00] You don't have to farm.
[00:09:02] You don't have to keep livestock. The rest of the community will do that. You've got a really special job. Why are you challenging me? It is against the Lord that you are challenging me. And your followers have banded together with you.
[00:09:21] Moses summoned Dathan, Abraham, Abram. Can't say that word. Two other rebels, but they said, we will not come.
[00:09:28] Isn't it enough that you've brought us up out of the land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? Again, another dishonest argument.
[00:09:38] They're basically saying we were better off where we were before they weren't, and you brought us out to kill us humans. He didn't.
[00:09:46] And now you want to lord it over us. So they're now accusing him of corruption. You just want to be the big boss.
[00:09:52] Moreover, you haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. They're basically saying, where's our money?
[00:10:04] And then the cruelest thing of all, he says, they say, do you want to treat us like slaves?
[00:10:10] No. We won't come to your test.
[00:10:13] They insult Moses by saying, now you are the slave driver, like the people that used to slave drive us back in Egypt.
[00:10:22] Dishonest arguments. Not interested in the people, but just interested in power.
[00:10:29] Then Moses became very angry. Well, you would, wouldn't you? And he said to the Lord, do not accept this offering.
[00:10:36] I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, nor have I wronged any of them.
[00:10:42] Moses is saying, I'm doing the job humbly. I'm not corrupt, and I'm not just buying favors.
[00:10:49] He's quite restrained, because I think I would have said something like, you little insolent, rebellious, selfish, narcissistic, entitled people. How dare you challenge me.
[00:11:02] You and your stupid followers would all be slaves without me.
[00:11:07] I gave up my life of luxury, not you.
[00:11:10] I risked my life, not you.
[00:11:12] I answered God's call, not you. I challenged Pharaoh, not you. And you are all free because of what I did.
[00:11:20] And you have no right to challenge me. You're all terribly ungrateful. I mean, that would be a better response, wouldn't it?
[00:11:27] More honest. Okay, last slide on the readings.
[00:11:32] When Korah had gathered all his followers at the tent of the meeting, the glory of The Lord appeared to the entire assembly.
[00:11:39] The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, separate yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once. But Moses and Aaron fell face down and cried out, o God, the God who gives breath to all living things. Will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins humbly interceding for the people?
[00:12:01] Then the Lord said to Moses, say to the assembly, move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abraham.
[00:12:07] He warned the assembly, move back from the tents of these wicked men. As soon as he finished saying this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions, they went down alive into the realm of the dead with everything they owned. And the earth closed over them.
[00:12:31] They perished and were gone from the community.
[00:12:34] And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men.
[00:12:41] So a really dark story, but let's see how we can get through this and understand it a bit better.
[00:12:49] As I said, Cora is not interested in trying to be fair about who should be leading the people of Israel. It's just a power grab.
[00:13:00] If he was interested, he would say different things. But get this. Cora has got great leadership skills.
[00:13:07] He's managed to get 250 people plus the other two to follow him.
[00:13:12] And it says the 250 people were community leaders.
[00:13:15] He had a leadership skill. He's pretty good at making speeches because he'd come up with concocted idea of how to challenge Moses. We're all holy. Why do you put yourself up against us?
[00:13:28] But he was using his leadership skills in the wrong way.
[00:13:33] There are many people in this room with leadership skills or positions of influence.
[00:13:40] Maybe it's at work.
[00:13:42] Maybe it's in a voluntary organization. Maybe you're the person in the family, everyone looks up to you.
[00:13:48] How do you use those leadership skills?
[00:13:52] Jesus said, the people of this world love to lord it over other people with their leadership skills rather than being servants of all.
[00:14:01] I want you to imagine that the electricity disappears off in this room and we're all plunged into darkness. The doors are closed, none of us can see our way out. It would become very, very dangerous, especially those steps and all this paraphernalia here. What would we do? We'd get our phones out, wouldn't we? And try and turn on that little torch. Does anyone know how to turn on the little torch on their phone?
[00:14:24] Why does it turn itself on anyway?
[00:14:27] And I want you to imagine none of the phones work. Except for one phone, one light. And that person holds up their torch and. And leads us out. That's the leadership gift.
[00:14:39] Now imagine if that person just turned on that torch and thought, oh, I'll get myself out. Leave everybody else in there. That's selfishness.
[00:14:46] Or just used it for their friends and families or the people they wanted to impress.
[00:14:52] That would be the wrong use of the gift. And so many people who are blessed with the gift of leadership sort of think it's all about them not realizing it's a gift that God gives and has to be used to serve other people.
[00:15:08] We all need to be led to the land flowing with tea, coffee and biscuits.
[00:15:20] There's other people here, I believe, who have leadership gifts but are reluctant to use them.
[00:15:26] They've had a go of being leaders in the workplace, maybe in some political activity, maybe in a voluntary organisation. I've had a go and it's just tough. And it is tough and it sometimes goes wrong. And I just want to say, I think God is saying, if you've got a leadership gift, if you've got the torch that works on your phone, then maybe God is saying you need to use that, even if it is very, very challenging.
[00:15:54] Selfish leaders. How are we using our leadership gifts if we got them?
[00:15:59] Complaining followers. Now, the only reason Cora could actually mount this challenge is he managed to get people's complaints to power what he wanted to say. Yeah.
[00:16:12] Now, I know many of you will know. If you speak to some English people, you say, how are you? They say, mustn't grumble. Yeah, you know that. Now, what a lot of people don't know is that's actually a call and response.
[00:16:26] Now, I know that often we say God is good all the time. And you have to say all the time, well, it works for muss and grumble. Right? Let me explain. I'm going to ask you in a minute how you are. And you're all going to shout at me, muss and grumble. And I'm going to give you one of the responses, okay, how are you?
[00:16:44] Doesn't do any good. Anyway.
[00:16:48] Next one. How are you?
[00:16:50] Well, you will, won't you?
[00:16:53] And there's this sort of jokey sense that grumbling and complaining is just okay. And yet this passage shows we have to be really, really careful. In fact, when you say mustn't grumble, you are saying one of the most biblical things ever, because the Bible talks a lot, especially in this part of the Bible, about grumbling and complaining and moaning. The Bible talks a lot about do not fear. But I think muss and grubble comes a close second.
[00:17:24] Now, it's important to understand that the Bible in this story isn't teaching that we should just meekly always obey our leaders, be they political at work in the church or. It's not saying that because the Bible often challenges leaders. Jesus challenged leaders. The Bible has often been used throughout history to challenge bad leaders. But it does talk about our attitude. That comes when maybe we are people who moan and grumble and winch.
[00:17:54] If there is a justifiable concern, and there is, because there are bad leaders, there are terrible leaders.
[00:18:01] But it's simply not true to say that they're all bad.
[00:18:06] And that can often be our attitude. They're all in it for themselves.
[00:18:10] I mean, I'm going to say one word and I'm going to hear an amazing groan. Here's the word politician.
[00:18:17] It's just not true that all politicians are in it for themselves. It's not true that all line managers are bad. It's not true that all leaders in all churches are in it for themselves. That is cynicism.
[00:18:32] There are bad ones and we do need to deal with it. But when we come to deal with it, where is our motivation coming from? And are we going to deal with this respectfully and are we going to understand what's going on in our hearts? You know, a lot of people use righteous anger as a way of challenging their leaders.
[00:18:54] And righteous anger really is only righteous if it's mainly on behalf of other people.
[00:18:59] I can get very, very angry about things that go wrong in my life and ask God to call down fire on people. But actually it's just because my nose been put out of joint. It's just because something's gone wrong for me. And I often feel God saying, why aren't you like that on behalf of other people?
[00:19:15] Is it really? Righteous anger and constant complaining is dangerous because it makes us cynical.
[00:19:23] And if we're cynical, we become negative. And if we're negative, problems are never going to get sorted.
[00:19:29] Grumbling and complaining is never harmless, but it seems harmless. We can train ourselves into being negative and complaining. One thing that makes me laugh is when you describe to someone a minor inconvenience of life and people come back with one word. Typical is that maybe saying there's some negativity about us that needs to be dealt with.
[00:19:57] The second reason that complaining constantly is dangerous is it can be weaponized. In other words, we can become unwilling accomplices of other people who want to go after power by using our complaints.
[00:20:11] That's what Cora was doing. He wasn't really interested in sorting out what was bothering people. He just wanted power.
[00:20:18] So sometimes we can just get caught up in some sort of complaint or moaning and be used by other people.
[00:20:30] A third reason it's dangerous is because it doesn't bring us any closer to God. It really doesn't. It certainly didn't for Cora and for his people. It just doesn't. It causes us to be negative. It causes us to be cynical. It causes us not to try and solve any problems with our leaders. It doesn't bring us any closer.
[00:20:52] So for the last bit, faithful workers, we're going to come to a twist. Okay, there's going to be a twist in this last part that we're going to look at in numbers 26, which is about 10 chapters later. It sort of refreshes and renews the whole story. And it says this.
[00:21:12] Dathan and Abram contended against Moses in the company of Korah. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah. And the fire devoured 250 men. And they became a warning.
[00:21:25] But the sons of Korah did not die.
[00:21:28] But the sons of Korah did not die. There's a twist coming. Okay, now I want you to remember, the sons of Korah did not die.
[00:21:34] Maybe make a little fist with your left hand and hold onto that right. The sons of Korah did not die.
[00:21:44] Look here. Three excerpts from some Psalms. Okay?
[00:21:49] Psalm 42. A lot of people find this very, very helpful. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. It taugh talks about that deep desire to want to be rescued by God.
[00:22:01] God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear even though the earth give way.
[00:22:07] Now, this is what happened to Korah and his followers. Okay, there's a twist coming.
[00:22:13] 84. Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. That was Korah's job. Literally, that was his job.
[00:22:31] Now, if Korah and his followers had had these feelings, this focus, they wouldn't have ended up in trouble.
[00:22:39] And I know some of us really love these verses and verses like it, but some of us look at it and think, I don't feel like that.
[00:22:46] I never felt like that.
[00:22:48] And we feel bad that we've never felt like That I know this man. And he had a leadership position at work. And he got into a conflict at work, a very, very difficult situation. He couldn't sleep. He found it difficult to pray.
[00:23:05] And when he read stuff like this, it just seemed 100 million miles away.
[00:23:09] So he prayed three prayers that we all pray when we have problems at work.
[00:23:15] God, I feel awful. Make me feel better.
[00:23:18] Prayer wasn't answered.
[00:23:21] God, I need wisdom.
[00:23:24] Wisdom didn't turn up.
[00:23:26] God, I don't want to feel better. I don't want wisdom. Just sort the whole thing out. God didn't sort the whole thing out.
[00:23:32] But what he did find is he was drawn more and more back to verses like this, because what was happening is he was unearthing the deep desire that he had to want to be rescued by God. And, you know, if anybody has made a serious decision to want to follow Jesus and in panics that they don't feel like this, don't worry about it. Because this is what the Holy Spirit puts in our heart.
[00:23:58] And often it's just other stuff that gets in the way.
[00:24:02] And what this guy found is the more he prayed about the situation or tried to pray, he was drawn to this. And then he realized that was in his heart anyway and that was going to help him through. And it did help him through.
[00:24:14] Now, here's the twist.
[00:24:17] Those three psalms and others like it, if you look it up in the Bible, it says of the sons of Korah.
[00:24:25] So Korah, the ancestor had got it completely wrong, was just using all of that power, all of his influence, to try and go for a power grab. But somehow the generations after him understood it. They got the right desire.
[00:24:41] So if we have leadership skills, let's use them. If we're tempted to complain, let's look at what our motives might be.
[00:24:53] So next time we ask this question, Let's check our motives.
[00:25:01] If we're complaining about our leaders all the time, the Bible says we're supposed to pray for our leaders, not complain about them.
[00:25:08] And maybe when we say, who put the acidia in charge? The problem isn't with the idiot in charge. The problem is. Well, it would be too rude to finish that sentence, wouldn't it?
[00:25:20] Thank you very much for your attention this morning.
[00:25:23] Any attention you give to anybody trying to explain any part of the Bible is a sign of faith, and God rewards faith. Thank you.
