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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Crippling the Gospel: How Racism Hurts the Work of the Church

Good evening and greeting once again from the 3 Angels Church here in Newington, Connecticut.

Actually, 2 messages will be done addressing some of the racial turmoil and injustice that our country is dealing with, in some ways, dealing with very well, in some ways, not so well.

This first message is entitled Crippling the Gospel.

The scripture reading is taken from Numbers chapter 12, starting at verse 15.

And it says, And Mariam was shut out from the camp 7 days, and the people journeyed not till Mariam was brought in again.

A message again, crippling the gospel, how racism hurts the work of the church.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord, more than ever, I really ask now that you make me a nail upon the wall.

Lord, I need to be hidden by your face, so hang your portrait upon that nail.

Lord, now I ask in a special way that you speak through me.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

We're gonna go to the book of Numbers chapter 12, starting at verse 1.

The Bible says, and Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses Because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married For he had married an Ethiopian woman When I was in Israel, I was able to spend a couple months late in high school Studying Jewish history.

I did 2 months college level Jewish history What was nice was I got to travel around Israel and see much of Israel and learn the Bible and Jewish history firsthand, looking at things that archeologists have discovered that point back to the, not just the relevance, but the authenticity of the scriptures.

1 of the things my Jewish teacher discussed with us was this story, And it stuck with me.

I was the only African-American in the group of our little group.

There were several groups of us that were there, studying from the States in Israel at the time.

And he brought up this story and it stuck with me.

A story that speaks to how God sees prejudice and bigotry.

The Bible says that Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman.

The Bible Ethiopian, the connotation that goes along with it is that they're dark-skinned.

In the Greek, it literally means like black-skinned people.

Some would argue that she wasn't black like African-Americans which would be Western African, but clearly she was different from them.

And I think That's the point of the story.

And because of that, Mariam and Aaron, specifically more Mariam, it seems, was a bit upset with Moses for making this decision.

How dare he marry someone outside of what they expected?

The Bible does not say that she believed any different.

We would have to assume that Moses married someone who believed as he did.

And there's a lot I could get into that with if we step back and look at the life of Moses.

But for right now, I think what's most important is that we dive into this text and really begin to look at what's going on.

Numbers 12 in verse 2 says, and they said, have the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses?

Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.

And so they were jealous also, not only are they upset that he married someone different, They were also upset that he seemed to be the 1 that was in the leadership position, that God spoke to him.

But when they murmured against God's servant Moses, God heard it.

That's what the Bible says at the end of verse 2.

And Numbers 12 and verse 3 describes Moses' character.

Why was Moses, someone who had been 40 years trained in Egypt, walked in the palaces of Pharaohs, educated to probably be a general at the least, maybe even Pharaoh 1 day.

Taken from that, he spent 40 years minding sheep in the wilderness outside of Egypt after he had fled.

And somewhere in that process, you got to get this, of going from being the privileged to being the servant in a sense, to being the shepherd, Moses' character is transformed.

So much so that Moses is called meek above all men which were upon the face of the earth.

In order to have racial harmony, humility must be what leads, Not pride.

Pride is 1 of the things that will destroy harmony and unity inside the church and outside.

Numbers 12 in verse 4 says, then the Lord speaks suddenly unto Moses and unto Aaron and Mariam, come out ye 3 unto the tabernacle of the congregation.

The Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called Aaron and Mariam and they both came forth.

So the 3 of them step out, God comes down in the pillar of the cloud, and he calls Aaron and Mariam further, and Moses is allowed to stay back.

You kind of wanted to be the 1 that wasn't called, Like going to the principal's office.

And so Miriam and Aaron are called forward.

And when Aaron and Miriam are called forward, you can tell that there's real trouble that is brewing.

If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream.

My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house.

And so he begins to talk to them and say, listen, I speak to Moses.

So he would have spoken to Moses about who Moses married.

He says He talks to Moses in a way that he talks to no 1 else.

He says, Moses, who was faithful in all his house in verse 7, in verse 8 he says, with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches.

And the similitude of the Lord shall he behold.

Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

In other words, not only are you upset that I speak to Moses, but I don't think you understand, Moses got premarital counseling from me.

When he chose who he chose to marry, I signed off on it.

Don't attack him because you don't like who he chose.

And here's the thing, the strong, not just connotation, but Even the denotation in the story is that it was because she didn't look like them or sound like them or was not 1 of them.

It was bigotry that caused this division.

The anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.

The cloud departed from off the tabernacle, and behold, Mariam became leprous, white as snow.

And Aaron looked upon Mariam, and behold, she was leprous." What's interesting is she was very upset that Moses had married a woman that was probably darker than they were.

We might be able to make that assumption.

But isn't it interesting that her punishment is a disease that made her whiter?

Scripture says, in fact, that leprosy made her white as snow.

When Aaron saw this, he panicked, and Aaron said to Moses in Numbers 12, verse 11, Alas, my Lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly and wherein we have sinned.

Let her not be as 1 dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother's womb.

Literally, it seems as if she was concerned with the skin of Moses' wife.

Now they're concerned with her skin, that her skin would not be as 1 dead.

In other words, there's a message being pushed that what matters is that the person is alive and healthy, that they're able to function, that they're harmonious with us in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I'm talking to the church now, that that's what matters.

If skin is what matters and you get leprosy, then you are of the worst.

It's almost as if I'm trying to give a message numbers 12 and verse 13 and Moses cried unto the Lord saying Heal her now.

I beseech thee Let me stop and talk a little bit about what's going on in America right now We know that there were multiple cases in the last few weeks.

Of African Americans 1 in Brunswick, Georgia, who was shot and killed while taking a jog.

There's another gentleman who the police kneeled on his neck.

The latest autopsy report I read Deemed that he was it was it was homicide and that he was killed by asphyxia The pressure of the police officer's knee on that gentleman's neck would have cut off his ability to breathe.

In fact, on the video, he is crying out that he can't breathe.

I've heard some cruel people say if you can say you can't breathe, you can breathe but they don't understand respiratory physiology.

He can breathe for a while but he would become eventually, you would become exhausted.

The lungs and the muscles would become exhausted trying to breathe against such a force.

And eventually he is, in this case, his trachea would collapse and he would not be able to breathe or his pharynx would collapse, depending on where the knee was.

And so we've had these horrible deaths, and there are others.

In fact, we could go back many years to all of the deaths that have been caused against unarmed African-Americans.

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Crippling the Gospel: How Racism Hurts the Work of the Church

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