{"id":1215,"date":"2019-02-28T09:43:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T09:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2019-02-28T09:43:28","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T09:43:28","slug":"wilderness-wisdom-beware-the-fringes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wilderness-wisdom-beware-the-fringes\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilderness Wisdom: Beware the Fringes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Robert J. Morgan, one of my favorite authors, writes in his\nbook, <em>The Strength You Need: The\nTwelve Great Strength Passages of the Bible,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;God\nhasn&#8217;t given us a book simply filled with miscellaneous quotations or motivational\nmottos. He has given us a book rich in history, with riveting plots,\nunforgettable characters, and enriching stories. Every great quotation has a\ngreat context.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recently, I emerged from the Desert of Leviticus in my Bible\nreading plan to the book of Numbers and Deuteronomy, books awash with\nleadership lessons. So, as I jot down a few insights in the next few weeks I\nthought I would share some \u201cWilderness Wisdom\u201d from the nation of Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chapter 11 \u2013 Rebellion in the Camp<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; for\nthe Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned\namong them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. 2 Then the people\ncried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed to the Lord, the fire was quenched. 3\nSo he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the Lord had\nburned among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite all that God had done for them, it\u2019s startling how\nready the people are to complain against God.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>William MacDonald notes, \u201cA clue to the discontent is found\nin verse 1 \u2013 \u2018consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.\u2019 The malcontents were\nat a distance from the ark.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And Spurgeon commented on this passage,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cObserve\nhow the mischief began in the outskirts among the mixed multitude, and how the\nfire of the Lord burned in the uttermost parts of the camp. The great danger of\nthe church lies in her camp-followers or hangers-on: they infect the true\nIsrael. Hence the need of guarding the entrance of the church, and keeping up\ndiscipline within it. Grumbling, discontent, ungrateful complaining \u2014 these are\ngrievous offences against our gracious God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Practical application: A church that does not call believers\nto baptism and then to church membership can be, unknowingly, creating its own\n\u201coutskirts of the camp\u201d from which discontent and disobedience will arise. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert J. Morgan, one of my favorite authors, writes in his book, The Strength You Need: The Twelve Great Strength Passages of the Bible, &#8220;God hasn&#8217;t given us a book simply filled with miscellaneous quotations or motivational mottos. He has given us a book rich in history, with riveting plots, unforgettable characters, and enriching stories. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-living"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/wilderness-blog-600x300.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/wilderness-blog-600x300.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Kent Husted","author_link":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/author\/khusted\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}