God's Deep Mercy

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says a mom can lead her children and keep her cool.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: When you know that God has made you the mother, and that you may not be the best mother in the world but you’re seeking to please the Lord, then you don’t have to go into a tirade or a rage when your authority is challenged.

Give God time to act as He did in Moses’s and Miriam’s case. Let God handle your situation in the way that He deems best.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Forgiveness, for Thursday, August 26, 2021. I'm Dannah Gresh.

When somebody treats you wrong, how do you usually respond? Ponder that question with Nancy as she as continues in the series, "Remember Miriam." We've been in this series a while, so if you missed any of the past episodes, you'll want to catch them at ReviveOurHearts.com or on the Revive Our Hearts app. Let's listen to Nancy.

Nancy: When you are listening to Revive Our Hearts on the radio, one of the things you can't experience in our recording sessions is we have about forty women gathered to listen together to the teaching of God's Word. We've been studying together on Miriam, and God has been speaking to our hearts.

After the last session, we took some moments to pray and praise and thank the Lord for His mercy and kindness to us and for forgiving us of our sins.

Miriam sinned greatly, and the consequences was great. We sin greatly, and the consequences are great. We are so thankful for the blood of Jesus, God's Son, that washes us from sin.

We had a sweet time of singing and praying and thanking and confessing. We are reminded that today we don't have to go through all the stuff that they had to in the Old Testament—with the birds being killed and the sacrifices being offered and the regiment and the routine. It's a picture of what Christ has done for us on the cross. Because it is finished, we go to the cross and there we apply for forgiveness and cleansing and we are set free.

I want to wrap up this series on Miriam today with some further thoughts and making it a little bit more personal in our lives.

For those of you who have not been with us, we’ve been in Numbers 12, and we saw this very sobering incident where Miriam, accompanied by her brother Aaron, spoke against Moses. They didn’t like the wife he had chosen; and deeper than that, it bothered them that he was the one speaking for God.

There was jealousy. There was envy that resulted in a critical spirit—really an insurrection, a rebellion against Moses’s authority—and God took this very seriously. Miriam was struck with leprosy and had to stay outside the camp for seven days. I think all of us who have been listening to this series are very glad that God generally doesn't deal with us in quite such a direct manner of chastening, as He did in that instance. It’s a caution, a warning, that God takes sin seriously.

But throughout this passage we also see the incredible mercy of God. It’s a sober passage. It’s a passage that shows God’s holiness and His judgment against sin, but thank God for His mercy.

First of all, we see God’s mercy in the fact that Miriam did not die. She recovered. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and every sinner—that would be all of us—deserves to die.

In fact, if you remember the context in which this story took place, remember that Numbers 12 follows Numbers 11, where the anger of the Lord had been kindled against the people who had murmured and whined, and God had struck down the people. Many of them had died from a very great plague.

So, in just the previous location where the children of Israel had been, a lot of people had lost their lives for their sin, but God in His mercy spared Miriam’s life. The fact that you and I are alive today is an evidence of God’s mercy. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t take it lightly.

Then we see the mercy in the fact that Moses interceded for Miriam. In verse 13, after she got leprosy, Moses cried to the Lord, “O God, please heal her—please.” Thank God for those who intercede on our behalf and who cry out to God for mercy on our lives!

Then we see God’s mercy in the fact that she was healed—not only the fact that she didn’t die, but the fact that she didn’t spend the rest of her life as a leper. The only way for Miriam to be healed from this terminal illness was a supernatural act of God.

That healing was God’s mercy. She could not heal herself. Moses could not heal her.

By the way, those who sin against us and experience the consequences, as Miriam did for sinning against Moses, cannot be healed by our efforts. They can only be healed by God. That’s why we are right to do what Moses did, to pray and plead with God that He will heal and restore repentant sinners.

It was God’s mercy that Miriam did not have to stay outside the camp more than the seven days that she did; that she was forgiven; that she was restored to fellowship with God and with God’s people.

She was able to return to the covenant community, and that is the goal—that’s always the goal in God’s chastening and His discipline—that we can be restored to a right relationship with Him and a right relationship with others of God’s people.

It’s interesting to me, as I have been studying the life of Miriam. We saw the first chapter of her life when she was a little girl, in Exodus 2; we saw her as a caretaker, looking over her little brother Moses in that reed ark in the Nile River. She was a caretaker.

We saw her in Exodus 15, as they came out on the other side of the Red Sea. She was a celebrator, leading the women in praising the Lord for what He had done.

Then we’ve seen her over these last few days in Numbers 12 as a critic, a complainer, one who attacked Moses—a sinful chapter of her life. Those are the only three accounts we have in the Scripture of Miriam’s life, appart from her death which is mentioned in Numbers 20, with no detail. After this incident in Numbers 12, Miriam is never mentioned again until she dies. 

"The people of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there."

She was now at this point about 126 give or take. She died one year to the day before the Israelites crossed over Jordan into the Promised Land. She never got to see it herself.

So the last words we ever hear from Miriam’s mouth that are recorded in Scripture are the ones we’ve been studying about in this series, from Numbers 12:2, where she said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?”

They were words of criticism, words of jealousy, envy, pride, selfish ambition, and rebellion. 

As I thought about that, I thought, What if the words that I had spoken most recently—to my family, to our staff, to those I have disagreements with—were my last words ever or the last remembered? What if the words you spoke last to your husband, your boss, your parents, were the last words you ever spoke? The tongue is an expression of our heart, and that’s why we need to be so careful about what words come out of our mouths.

Why is Miriam never mentioned again? I don't know the answer to that question. I think it is possible that she was really put aside by God and her prophetic role in ministry was finished after this rebellio. I'd like to think that after this chastening it had its desired affect in her life—that she repented. And I believe she did repent or she would not have been healed from the leprosy. I’d like to think that she served humbly and quietly in the role God had for her as a prophetess, a woman of God, leading the women in supporting God’s ordained leadership of Moses; that she did this by serving humbly and quietly for the rest of her life.

We don’t know, and one of the reasons perhaps the Scripture doesn’t tell us is that we realize sometimes God does put us on a shelf and our usefulness is over. There is a place we can go where we sin against the grace of God to an extent that we become disqualified for ministry, and that’s a dreadful thought to contemplate. But we also have the hope that as we repent, we can be restored, and God can continue to use us.

There’s a verse in the book of Deuteronomy, and as many times as I’ve read through the Scripture over the years—many, many times—when I came across this verse in this study, I did not remember ever having seen it before. But it’s there—Deuteronomy 24:9.

This is after Miriam’s death. As the children of Israel are getting ready to go into the Promised Land, Moses says, “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way as you came out of Egypt.”

Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam. That’s a great challenge, and I want to leave you with that. Remember what God did to Miriam.

One Jewish writer said that this verse is one of six remembrances which Jews recite daily after morning prayer—remember what God did to Miriam.

It reminds me of another verse: “Remember Lot’s wife.” We read that in Luke 17:32. Both of these women experienced the chastening hand of God. Lot’s wife, to death; Miriam was restored. Remember. Don’t forget what God did to Miriam.

What are we supposed to remember? Well, the seriousness of speaking out against, or tearing down, or opposing God’s servants. Don’t let those thoughts become words.

To speak out against a man of God, to speak out against your husband, to speak out against your pastor, to speak out against a Christian leader, to oppose them, to tear them down out of a heart of pride or envy or jealousy or a critical spirit, to have a rebellious heart—it’s serious. It’s a great evil.

As I said earlier in the series, that does not mean that those leaders never sin, and it does not mean that you can never be a part of the process of bringing that sin to light. We're not talking about brushing sin under the carpet. There is no way in one session to give all the caveats and all the disclaimers. There are other parts of Scripture that talk about appropriate ways to bring sin to light. If your husband is violating the law, if he is abusing you, there is a right way to bring that out into the light.

I talked to a woman within the last couple of weeks who has been in an abusive marriage. We talked about appropriate ways for her to deal with this. What I loved about this is she came from a humble spirit. She was not attempting to tear her husband down or to put him in a negative light. She wants to honor him.

But she has also come to realize that honoring him doesn't necessarily mean keeping quiet about all this. By keeping quiet for years, she has put herself in a position of enabling him to keep sinning. That's not right.

What we are talking about here is the seriousness of having a critical, judgmental spirit that tears down those that God has put in leadership. “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam.”

Here’s another danger that I see as we look at the story of Miriam. She had a position of prominence, of respectability, and so do many of us. Others look up to us, and the danger is that we can begin to think of ourselves too highly.

We can begin to think that we are the exception to God’s rule. Others cannot sin and get away with it, but we can, so we can justify our wrongdoing because of our position.

We realize as we look at the life of Miriam that even great, spiritual people, people that you respect, people that you look up to, are flawed. They are human. They are vulnerable. What’s the implication? Don’t put your trust in people.

Psalm 118:7–8 happen to be the very two middle verses of the whole Bible, and they tell us (I’m quoting it from memory here, so this won’t be exact, but the essential thought is): Don’t put your trust in men. Don’t put your trust in princes. Don’t put your trust in people. Put your trust in God.

Let me say, by the way, don’t put your trust in Nancy DeMoss. I’m so thankful for the listeners to this program and how many of you express gratitude for how God is using His teaching ministry in your lives. I'm encouraged by the letters and the emails and words you speak when I'm out at conferences. You tell me how God has used this ministry. But I want to tell you, like Miriam, I am flawed.

I am sinful. I am weak. I am vulnerable. My prayer is that God will guard my heart, and I will never ever sin in such a way as to discredit or dishonor the Word of God. But if I ever do, make sure your trust wasn’t in me, that it was in the Lord.

That's a serious thing. We don't look to pastors or teachers or leaders. We can respect, we can thank God for them, but don't put your hope in them. We all have feet of clay.

I'm saying that maybe out of my own sense of need so that people don't look at me instead of God. I am so far from that. I know the wrestlings of my own heart. I know the temptations and the tendencies of my own flesh. So when God uses someone in your life, thank God for them, but don’t put your hope and your trust in that person.

Age, tenure in ministry, tenure in influence or position, long-term faithfulness—these things are no guarantee against failure. Miriam walked with God until she was something like ninety years of age. There is no record of her having committed a major sin until she was around the age of ninety. I'm no saying she never sinned before that. But the greatest fall of her life took place around ninety years of age.

In fact, that long-term tenure of faithfulness can set you up for a fall, because you start to think you can coast. You can take it easy. I can never take it easy. You can never take it easy. We always need the protecting, preserving, sustaining grace and power of God in our lives, no matter how gray our hair gets, no matter how long we have been faithful to the truth. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam.

Then there’s the reminder that tenure and position in ministry do not make you an exception to God’s rules. You and I who are being used of God in different ways cannot justify our sin because God is using us, or because we are Bible teachers or we counsel other people or other people look up to us. Remember what the Lord your God did to the prophetess Miriam.

Miriam was sent by God, along with Moses and Aaron, in a special way to provide leadership to God’s people. In fact, 700 years later, we read this verse in Micah 6:4. God says, “I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”

So she had a significant role. She was sent by God, under Moses’ leadership and under God’s authority, to be a leader of these women, to be a prophetess. She was a woman who knew God and spoke God’s word to the women, but that did not make her immune to a fall, and it didn’t make her an exception to God’s rules. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam.

I want to challenge you to remember. I hope I don’t forget the example of Miriam’s life. God takes sin seriously, and so must we.

I believe that God is calling many of us as women to repent of ways that, with our spirit, our tongue, our attitudes, our behavior, we have dishonored the Lord by speaking critically or negatively of His servants. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam.

And don’t just remember how she got leprosy for her sin. Also, remember how God restored her to fellowship as a result of her repentance and as a result of His mercy and grace.

I want to take just a few more moments at the end of this series to make another practical application from this particular instance in the life of Miriam that we’ve been studying about in Numbers 12, and that is this question: How are we to respond when we are the one who is being attacked? If we are in Moses's shoes, so to speak. I know none of us are Moses. But if we are the one being attacked unfairly or unjustly as Moses was in this situation by his sister. 

Sometimes, in whatever roles or situations we may find ourselves in life, we may be attacked in ways that are unwarranted and unprovoked. Now, sometimes we are attacked because we deserve it and have provoked it. Sometimes people come against us through no fault of our own, and what are we to do. Those attacks can come from unexpected sources.

Miriam was a prophetess. Aaron was the high priest, and they were Moses’s brother and sister, his closest family members—not where you would expect the attack to come from. So what do you do?

I think in the little that is said of Moses in this chapter, we learn some important lessons. First of all, we need to respond in a spirit of meekness and humility.

We’re told in Numbers 12:3 that “Moses was very meek.” He was a humble man, and as we’ve said earlier, the evidence of his humility is that he did not speak a word in his own defense.

One commentator says, “Because Moses was the meekest of all men, he could calmly leave the attack upon himself to the all-wise and righteous Judge who had both called and qualified him for his office.”

When you know God has put you where you are—some of your teenage kids may be saying, “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do”—when you know that God has made you the mother, and you may not be the best mother in the world but you are seeking to please the Lord, then you don’t have to go into a tirade or a rage when your authority is challenged.

You can apply that to other situations as well. Let God fight your battles. Give God time to act, as He did in Moses’s and Miriam’s case. Let God handle your situation in the way that He deems best.

Proverbs 26:4 reminds us, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” Don’t answer in kind.

It would have been so easy, so natural for Moses to do what most of us would have done. When his authority was threatened, it would have been easy for him to talk harshly and sternly to Miriam. “Don’t you realize God called me?? I was at that burning bush!” He could have rolled out this whole series of defenses, but he didn’t do it.

Don’t answer a fool according to his folly, or you will become just like that person. Keep your mouth from sinning, even when others sin against you with their mouth.

Listen, what matters is not your reputation. You’ve got to be willing to die to that. What matters is the glory of God.

Vengeance belongs to God. Let God do what needs to be done in that person’s life, and plead for God’s mercy on the one who has sinned against you rather than His judgment.

I know what we’re thinking at that time is, “They deserve judgment.” And that’s right. So do we. But aren’t you glad God has dealt with you in mercy instead of in judgment?

So plead, as Moses did. He prayed; he interceded. He said, “Lord, please don’t let her die. Please heal her—please.”

He earnestly interceded on her behalf. He was pleading for mercy. Now, I imagine that Moses could have felt secretly vindicated, maybe even glad to see Miriam suffer; but there’s no evidence that he had any of that kind of response.

James 2 tells us that “judgment [will be] without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Aren’t you glad? Make sure that mercy is triumphing over judgment in your response to those who sin against you.

Let me just remind us, as we’ve seen illustrated in the story of Miriam in Numbers 12, that by enduring wrongdoing with a spirit of meekness and humility, you may actually be becoming an instrument of grace and healing in the life of the wrongdoer. That’s the power of the cross.

That’s what happened when Moses endured quietly. God came to his rescue, his defense. God dealt with Miriam, but ultimately, as a result of Moses’s willingness to pray for his sister, who had sinned so greatly, he became an instrument of God’s mercy and grace in her life and of her ultimate healing.

I don’t know any greater picture of that kind of impact than what we read about in 1 Peter 2:19-25.

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

In this sense, Moses is really just a type of Christ.

[Christ] committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, He did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. [Jesus Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

By Moses’s willingness to take those wounds, ultimately Miriam was healed. By Christ’s willingness to take our wounds, ultimately we were healed.

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

That’s the power of the Just One suffering for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, bring us to repentance. And as God has redeemed us by His willingness to bear our sins, so when we are willing to take the wounds that others inflict on us with their tongues or their attitudes or their disloyalty—when we take it with a spirit of humility and meekness—we manifest the Spirit of Christ; and we may ultimately see the power of the cross brought to bear in that situation, as the wrongdoer, the sinner, is brought to repentance and healing.

Oh Lord, teach us to think Your way. Help us to remember what You did to Miriam on the way out of Egypt. Help us remember the reproach, the shame, the cost and consequences of her sin. And also to remember Your unbelieveable mercy and grace that came as a result of intercession and repentance. And we are the one sinned against, O Lord, I pray that You give us that meek and humble spirit that Moses demonstrated, that Jesus our Savior demonstrated as He died for the salvation of the world, and our salvation as we sinned so greatly against Him.

Oh Lord, may we manifest that humility and that willingness to bear the sins of others so that they may be healed. For Jesus' sake we pray it, amen.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been exploring the biblical story of Miriam and using it to tell us very good news about sin and forgiveness.

That message is part of a series called, "Remember Miriam." The life of this biblical character has a lot of wisdom for women today. I appreciate the way Nancy’s been showing us how Miriam’s story brings up important heart issues we all need to think about. It’s the type of teaching our listeners believe in and appreciate. 

One woman wrote to us recently and said:

I get up and listen to Revive Our Hearts each morning in the shower. It is usually the only time I can finish a thought. When I am really intrigued, I pull up the transcript and dig deeper. Thank you all for letting God work through you.

Whether you listen in the shower, like this woman, or in your car, while you do laundry, or at the office, we’re grateful we can provide you with biblical teaching to help you to keep your focus on God. Another woman wrote this to Nancy:

You probe the heart to find different questions for each person in different seasons of life. I love that you don’t just do Bible teaching, but you also look at themes and topics facing us all today and see what the Bible has to say, as well as find real experiences and testimonies of people in those situations. I have found every program edifying, and it has spurred me on in my Christian walk.

That’s exactly what we hope to do with programs like these—spur you on in faith as you come to know the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness found in Christ. These programs and our other resources are made possible thanks to listeners like you. When you send a gift of any amount to this ministry, you’re helping us reach more women with the truth of the gospel. 

As a way to thank you for your support this month, you’ll receive our newest Women of the Bible study titled, Deborah: Becoming a Woman of Influence. This new resource walks you through Deborah’s life in the book of Judges. Over the course of six weeks, you’ll learn more about trusting God to lead as you walk in courage. Discover how your faith can make a difference in the lives of others as you learn from Deborah’s example.

Visit ReviveOurHearts.com to make your gift today, or call us at 1–800–569–5959, and ask for a copy of Deborah: Becoming a Woman of Influence. 

Have you ever heard a sentence like this?: "We have to do things the way they have always been done." Find out why this type of thinking could lead you into the type of sin that tripped up Miriam. That's tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review!  

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