Tag Archives: Community

Numbers 14:1ff The Community Raised Their Voices

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Fellowship@CrossCreek
Life of Moses
The Community Raised Their Voices!
Numbers 14.1ff
2.14.16
No against the crowd
Introduction… When was the last time the majority intimidated you into doing something that you weren’t quite sure of? What did you do? Did you stand or cave? Why? How did you feel about it later, one way or the other?

Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb are all finding out the high price of doing the right thing…of trusting God, when all those around seem NOT to be. 
 
Most of us are crowd followers, whether we like to admit it or not. We often fail to have the “guts” to think and pray for ourselves. There is no way that so many could be wrong, and I could be right?!
 
But once a person understands the psychological make-up of a crowd (or a mob) it is not hard to see how we can become so intimidated and follow the guy just ahead of me off the cliff. 
 
“If everyone else is doing it, there must be some legitimacy to it. Right?” Not always! And probably, not even mostly! Do your homework! 
 
What happens, is at some point in time, out of fear of being left out or going against the grain, individuals stop doing their homework. Call it Beanie Babies, AOL, the 2001 tech bubble, the 2008 mortgage crisis or Israel’s moral failure at Kadesh Barnea, we all do it. It’s human nature. The real question is can we summon the moral fortitude to stand up to the mob, risk sacrifice, but in the end, live with ourselves because we did the right thing, even if not perfect? 
 
In this case, the mob’s choices will have disastrous consequences. 

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