ONE OF THE MOST SINKING FEELINGS YOU CAN HAVE when you’re hurriedly driving to something important is to encounter the road sign Detour. Something inside goes, “Oh, no!” I think we all hate detours. And yet I’ve discovered something about God: He is a God of detours. Whenever He takes us the long way around, it is always for a purpose, even if we can’t see it at the time.
This truth is illustrated powerfully in one segment of Israel’s journey through the wilderness. We have something to learn by looking at a detour in their journey that was very strategic in God’s purposes.
The 40 years of the nation’s wanderings in the wilderness had drawn to a close and it was time to move forward into Canaan. So Moses asked the king of Edom if they could pass through Edom’s territory. Edom was the name given to the nation of Esau’s descendants. Edom was Israel’s brother, and the Edomites still carried a lot of bitterness toward the Israelites because of Jacob’s trickery toward Esau. In a word, Edom was envious of Israel. When Moses asked for passage through Edom’s territory, the king of Edom flatly denied the request. So the children of Israel continued to move in a northerly direction, passing along Edom’s western border (see Numbers 20:14-21).
HORMAH REPRESENTS FOR US
AN EARLY VICTORY THAT PRECEDES
A LONG DETOUR.
They approached a point just south of the Dead Sea when suddenly they were attacked by a king from Canaan—the king of Arad—who took some of the people as prisoners. After prayer, the Israelites attacked this Canaanite king and not only defeated the Canaanites but also destroyed them and their cities. The chief battleground was a place called Hormah (see Numbers 21:1-3). Hormah represents for us an early victory that precedes a long detour.
Even though not many people today realize it, the taking of Jericho was not Israel’s first entry into the Promised Land. Their first Canaanite victory was actually here at Hormah. They penetrated Canaan territory as far as Hormah, coming to within roughly 40 miles of Jerusalem.
From this vantage, Canaan—their inheritance—lay before them. The door was wide open. All they had to do was keep moving north. But before taking the next step, they decided to pause and seek God’s counsel. “Lord, which Canaanite city should we conquer next?”
The Lord’s answer stunned them: “Turn around, retreat out of Canaan, go all the way back to the Red Sea, and then make your way around Edom’s eastern border.”
I can imagine them thinking, Lord, You have got to be kidding! We are in Canaan! This is our Promised Land. Why can’t we just keep going? Why are You telling us to go all the way back to the Red Sea? Come on! But the Lord’s directive was very clear to Moses, so the people turned and went back toward the Red Sea (see Numbers 21:4). They circumvented Edom’s southern border and then began to move back north around Edom’s east side—all this so they would not have to pass through Edom’s territory. Talk about a major detour! (Follow the arrows on the map to see what appears to have been their route.)
The reason for the detour, in a word, was Edom. Edom had an ancient root of envy toward his brother, Israel, so God had to lead the Israelites in a way that responded properly to Edom’s envy. God had to give Israel his inheritance without exacerbating Edom’s envy inordinately. I can imagine the Lord saying, “Don’t start to grumble about the long path I’m taking you on right now. Because if you get Canaan too easily, the envy of Edom will erupt and they will challenge your victory. Take Canaan now and Edom will come and attack you. But if you will walk faithfully through this torturous detour, the envy of Edom will be placated; and when I bring you into your inheritance, your brother, Edom, will not come to challenge your new territory.”
However, God was dealing not only with Edom’s envy; but He was also dealing with Israel’s ambitious spirit. Their victory over the king of Arad was a sweeping success, and the ease of the battle put a gleam in their eye. They had tasted victory and it tasted very good! Now they had visions of the land melting before them like butter. An ambitious, conquering spirit arose in their hearts. “Okay, Edom, if you’re not going to let us pass through your territory, then watch this. We’ll just move directly into Canaan for ourselves and show you a thing or two. Watch our war machine in action, brother, and eat your heart out!” While this attitude is not articulated in the text, I am suggesting it was there because of the common human propensity to adopt a triumphal spirit in the wake of success.
You may recall that Esau (Edom) and Jacob were twin brothers and rivals right from the start. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for some food (see Genesis 25:29-34) and then was tricked out of his father’s blessing when Jacob pretended to be Esau and deceptively stole the blessing that was intended for Esau (see Genesis 27). The nation of Edom never forgot this. Instead of taking responsibility for the lack of blessing on his life, Esau thought it was all Jacob’s fault. Even though centuries had elapsed, the rivalry between the two nations was still alive and well.
Because Esau didn’t take personal responsibility for his relationship with God, his descendants ended up sinning grossly against Israel. In response, God declared that He would judge the nation of Edom. One of the prophets who recorded God’s wrath against Edom was a prophet who wrote one of the shortest books of the Bible, the prophet Obadiah.
The book of Obadiah is an exposé on envy, dealing specifically with Esau’s relationship with his brother, Jacob. Esau’s envy caused him to distance himself from Jacob and the promises to the patriarchs. Edom became a nation that, instead of participating in the kingdom of God, persecuted it. The fruit of envy is laid bare in the book of Obadiah, revealing the following principles regarding envy’s consequences:
• Envy leads to perverted thinking and loss of understanding.
“‘Will I not in that day,’ says the LORD, ‘even destroy the wise men from Edom, and understanding from the mountains of Esau?’ ” (Obadiah 1:8). When we refuse to deal with envy in our hearts, our thinking processes become twisted and we fall into deception.
• Envy will cause us to side with those who are opposed to the purposes of God.
“In the day that you stood on the other side—in the day that strangers carried captive his forces, when foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem—even you were as one of them” (v. 11). When the sides were drawn and attendance was taken, Edom (like Judas Iscariot on the night of Jesus’ betrayal) was found in the company of God’s enemies.
• Envy can cause one to rejoice in the distress of another, something which truly incurs God’s wrath.
“But you should not have gazed on the day of your brother in the day of his captivity; nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction” (v. 12).
• Envy can cause one to plunder another’s sphere, convinced that the other’s possessions or domain are one’s due.
“You should not have entered the gate of My people in the day of their calamity. Indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity” (v. 13). Jacob had gained blessing from God seemingly by tricking Esau; now Edom felt that Israel’s blessing was his rightful portion to confiscate. Envy had driven Edom to wrong conclusions.
• Envy always backfires.
“For the day of the LORD upon all the nations is near; as you have done, it shall be done to you; your reprisal shall return upon your own head” (v. 15). Convinced they were wronged, Edom had taken revenge on Israel. Now, because of God’s judgment, others would come and exercise revenge upon them. Edom’s violence returned on his own head.
• In the end, the one who envies will lose his inheritance to the one he envied.
“The South shall possess the mountains of Esau” (v. 19). Even though Esau envied Jacob and even plundered him, the Lord said that in the end Edom’s mountains would become the dominion of Israel.
The principles found in the book of Obadiah regarding envy are gripping in their implications. And now, as we return to the story of Israel’s tedious detour around the land of Edom, we will see how God couldn’t give Israel his inheritance without first dealing with Edom’s envy.
The huge detour around the land of Edom was a desert path with no food or water in the natural habitat. When God led the people of Israel on this lengthy bunny trail, they didn’t understand God’s purposes, so they weren’t exactly grateful. Their nasty attitudes and the attending consequences are recorded for us:
Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived (Numbers 21:4-9).
God knew that because of the lengthy delay the soul of the Israelites would become “very discouraged on the way.” God was not upset at their discouragement but, rather, at how they chose to express it. He wanted to root out their ambition and to deal with Edom’s envy, but their response was to complain. So God sent poisonous vipers into the camp to show them that their response to His dealings was literally killing them.
The New Testament gives us an interesting perspective on this story, telling us that the people perished from the serpent bites because they tempted Christ (see 1 Corinthians 10:9). They thought that the whole detour idea was dumb. They had stepped into the fruitful crescent of Canaan and now found themselves back in the wilderness without food and water—except for the manna they loathed by now. No doubt they were saying things like, “This is a stupid route to Canaan. God, do You know what You’re doing? Man, even I could chart a better course than this!” They were tempting Christ by despising their provision of manna and accusing God’s judgment and wisdom. Christ had shown His faithfulness to them countless times before, but now they were once again caught in the grip of unbelief. Through their impatience they were actually striking out at God with their tongues.
In sending the serpents, God was basically saying, “Let me show you what you’re doing. Let me illustrate it with some venomous serpents. They will strike out at you with their tongues and will poison you with their bitter venom. Perhaps they will help you to see that you have been poisoned by bitterness. They will do to you as you have done to Me. You have been bitten with bitter unbelief and it’s killing you on the inside.”
God’s delays have a purpose, but the season of delay is a time when we are especially tired, tender and vulnerable to temptation. If we do not guard our hearts and keep our carnal responses in check, we can run the risk of becoming a casualty.
When God takes you on a lengthy detour, you will be vulnerable to many possible venomous temptations that have the potential to leave a deadly bite: bitterness against God, unbelief (which is always the main one), carnal comparisons, backbiting, self-indulgence, complaining, accusing others, accusing God, and more.
GOD’S DELAYS HAVE A PURPOSE; BUT THE
SEASON OF DELAY IS A TIME WHEN
WE ARE ESPECIALLY TIRED, TENDER AND
VULNERABLE TO TEMPTATION.
The sobering point of the story is this: Not everyone survives the detour. Some are casualties. Think of it—you’ve come through the Red Sea, defeated the Amalekites, heard the voice of God at the mountain and survived 39 torturous years of wandering in the wilderness. When thousands of others were killed because of God’s judgments, you remained. And now, just a few short months before entering Canaan you become a casualty! Have you come this far, dear saint, to get sidelined by weariness when the end of the race is almost in sight?
THE SOBERING POINT OF THE STORY
IS THIS: NOT EVERYONE SURVIVES
THE DETOUR.
Unfortunately during one of God’s detours, many people don’t discern that God is wanting to deal with the ambitious, competitive spirit that has a sinister hold on their hearts. Most don’t even realize it’s a problem. God uses the delay to frustrate their personal agendas. The question is, Will they perceive that their frustration is the fruit of an ambitious spirit?
It’s interesting to note that it’s not the enemy that’s knocking them off right now. When it comes to the enemy in Canaan, they’re experiencing victories. But they’re getting eaten alive by the issues in their own hearts.
Those who pass the detour test will find it opens to a doorway of spiritual destiny. Those who succumb to unbelief and discouragement will perish. The stakes are enormous! So thanks be to God that in the midst of the judgment, His mercy extends powerfully to His people and He provides a means of healing to those who have taken the bite. He is so merciful! Even here, those who have been bitten with the venom of ambition find mercy and restoration in the life-giving power of God’s salvation. The serpent on the pole represents Christ, to whom we look today for healing from the deadly sting of envy, ambition and competition. He is such a good God! He has provided for our healing so that we might share in the glorious conquest of our promised land.
Let’s summarize the benefits of the detour:
1. It dealt with Edom’s envy. When Edom saw the agonizing road that Israel took to circumvent their land, trudging dispiritedly through a land with no water, their envy turned to pity. They saw how much Israel had to suffer just to honor Edom’s borders. When Israel finally conquered Canaan, Edom’s attitude was “Let them have it.”
2. Israel ended up with a larger inheritance than initially anticipated. The detour meant that they would have to conquer Amorite country first, before tackling Canaan. In the end, they got Canaan plus the land of the Amorites east of the Jordan. If they hadn’t taken the detour, it’s unlikely they would have ever challenged those other nations. It didn’t feel like it at the time; but through the detour, God was showing them that He was for them.
3. It dealt with ambition in Israel. If Edom was envious toward Israel, it could certainly be said that Israel had a competitive spirit toward Edom. The detour around Edom was surfacing the ambitions of their own hearts. God was targeting this ancient rivalry with a finely crafted detour. The brother with the lesser inheritance will always envy the brother with the greater inheritance. The brother with the greater inheritance will always have to deal with a spirit of competition toward the brother with the lesser inheritance. Actually, all of us have to deal in some measure with both attitudes. All of us have a little of both Edom and Israel in us. We all have to deal with envy toward those who are promoted over us, and with ambition when we’re promoted over others.
The story of Israel’s long detour around Moab, and the attending snakebites, is intensely relevant to where the church is today. Israel represents the brother (church/ministry) with the greater inheritance; Edom represents the brother (church/ministry) with the lesser inheritance. (God chooses our inheritance for us, and it’s different for each leader, church or ministry.) Then, when God places these churches in the same community or region, the relational dynamics are multitiered and extremely intricate.
GOD NEVER MAKES THE PATHWAY TO
GREATER FRUITFULNESS ENVIABLE.
In these days, the Lord is taking certain members of His church (usually those with the greater inheritance) through detours and delays. But God has a purpose in not allowing you to enter your inheritance the easy way. God wants to bless you with your full inheritance, but He can only do that by dealing with the envy of your brothers. He is going to make your path pitiable before them. God never makes the pathway to greater fruitfulness enviable. It always comes at a price that doesn’t produce envy but instead produces a holy fear at the consecration that fruitfulness exacts.
Paul spoke of it in these terms: “For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men” (1 Corinthians 4:9). Paul is saying, “Everybody is looking at us and wondering what God is doing with us! Even the angels are looking at our path and scratching their heads.” Perhaps Paul felt like that serpent impaled on the pole—a gazingstock for others to gawk at and wonder about, and draw premature opinions about. “What is God doing with that church?” “I wonder what’s up with his ministry?” This is God’s purpose, to make you a gazingstock. But as you persevere in discipline and temperance, one day your journey will become a life-giving source of encouragement to others who will walk a similar path.
Most every pastor has an envy story to tell. But since I’m the one writing this book, I get to tell my story. My purpose in telling it is to illustrate through some of my own experience the principles of this chapter.
My first pastorate was in a tiny city in western New York State. I was 29 when I accepted the pastorate of this small, struggling church. My wife and I were young, eager, sincere and inexperienced; and we had many dreams. One of the first things I did was join myself to a prayer gathering of pastors from three other area churches that were in our same general stream. I wasn’t prepared, however, for everything I would encounter.
One of the first things I learned was that these pastors all had a problem with a certain large, thriving church in our region. This large church had attracted sheep from virtually every other church in the region and had made no attempts to communicate with these pastors who had lost members. These pastors were charging the large church with being unethical, isolationistic and harboring sheep who had huge unresolved issues in their lives. Conversation in our pastoral prayer gatherings often reflected on this other church. The group definitely had an “us versus them” flavor, and I was expected to side with “us.”
I was too inexperienced to know and discern envy accurately, but to me the whole thing wasn’t adding up. If you put all four of our churches together, our combined attendance wasn’t even a quarter of the large church’s attendance. And the report I heard from sheep who attended the large church was that there were green pastures and still waters to be found there. So I decided to check it out for myself. I made an appointment and went to visit the pastor in his office.
His guard was up and he was ready for me. Previous visits from area pastors had been unpleasant for him and he was braced for more of the same. But I had come simply to meet him and hear his heart. My first visit told me there was a rich spiritual deposit in this brother and that I could learn a lot from him. So I came back to visit him again. By my third visit, he realized I was sincere in my desire for fellowship and our friendship began to build.
I once asked him, “Why don’t you call the pastor when a family comes to your church from another church?” He said, “These pastors are envious enough of us as is; if I drew attention to the situation every time it happened, it would be all the worse. Furthermore, I simply don’t have time to make all those phone calls.” He said they had never done anything to draw people away from another church. All they had done was concentrate on providing rich feed for their flock. As a result, sheep would come from all over to be fed. I was fascinated by his pastoral philosophy and set my heart to be open and teachable.
As the months progressed, the blessing of the Lord began to fall upon our little church. Soon, our church wasn’t so little anymore. It wasn’t long before our church outgrew the other churches represented by the pastors of our prayer group. When that happened, the nature of my relationship with the other pastors curiously began to change.
The bottom line was this: People were now leaving their churches and coming to ours. I quickly discovered this was the giant stumbling block of interchurch relationships, the great downside to church growth, the nemesis of citywide unity. When a family made the transition from another church to ours, part of me rejoiced at having more hands in the field to help with the harvest, but part of me cringed at how I would walk the thing out with my pastor-friend from the church the people had left. In my years as a pastor I struggled to find an effective way to walk this dynamic out with my fellow pastors. When their insecurities produced envious responses, there seemed to be no right way to smooth over the bumps.
We grew to three weekend services and knew we had to get into a larger facility. The Lord provided land in a sovereign way, and we began to draft plans to build a new worship facility. It was to be one of the largest sanctuaries in our city. The Lord put it in our hearts to build on a cash basis only, without taking out any kind of mortgage on the new building. Once we were in the new facility, this would be a great blessing; but getting into the facility on cash only would be a great faith challenge.
Our congregation began to give sacrificially. But even though they were giving generously according to their ability, we weren’t bringing in much more than 10 percent of the needed funds per year. Was it going to take us 8 to 10 years to occupy the new facility? Being in multiple services every weekend, the journey before us seemed interminable! After four years of sacrificial giving we hit a lull where it seemed all our momentum was gone. Financial giving trickled slower than ever. The pastoral staff was weary. The people were tired, and enthusiasm was low.
I began to ask, “How long, Lord?” I sought the Lord in prayer for understanding into the tedium of the journey. We were taking a laborious detour and I didn’t understand why. I shared our plight with the other pastors of our area. They began to pray with us and for us. Then they began to inquire into our welfare and express things like, “We’re sure hoping the Lord sends a major gift your way!” A couple area churches even gave offerings into our building fund!
Through that long delay and other refining circumstances in my life, the Lord was crushing me as a pastor. Through the crushing, He began to reveal to me how I had operated in an ambitious spirit in relation to the other pastors of the area. That element was such a tiny percentage of my motivation that for years I honestly hadn’t seen it. But through the crushing, God was surfacing all kinds of issues in my life that He wanted me to deal with. Even though it was maybe less than 1 percent of what motivated me, I was shown how a little leaven leavens the whole lump, and this tiny fraction of ambition was in fact discoloring every aspect of my ministry.
So I called the regional pastors together for a special meeting and said, “The Lord has been revealing the motives of my heart, and now I see that I have actually related to you brothers in a spirit of rivalry. Something inside me has been ambitious to build my own ministry, and it has caused me to relate to you in a competitive way.” They looked at me and said, “Yes. We know.” I said to them, “Please pray for me.” So I knelt before them and they laid their hands on me and prayed for me.
What a crushing experience that was for me! All I could do was humble myself under the mighty hand of God. As I reflect on it now, even though the detour was grueling in all that it surfaced, I’m thankful that the Lord loved me enough to use it in my life for refining and perfecting.
Through it all, I began to see the Lord’s wisdom in taking us the long route. Not only had He dealt with issues in our hearts, but I saw that if we had moved into our new facility quickly and with ease, the temptation for envy would have been strong in the other churches of the area. If envy had erupted, even though the new facility would have been a blessing to us in our local church, an eruption of envy in the regional church would have been deadly to the purposes of God for our area. It would have been one step forward but two steps back. But because the Lord took us on an agonizingly slow detour, the other churches eventually became our cheerleaders.
When we finally took occupancy of the new building six and one-half years after purchasing the property, they all rejoiced with us at the goodness of God. And yes, the Lord did send along some large gifts at the very end which enabled us to get into the building sooner than we thought—and on cash only. But by the time we moved in, the envy factor had been dealt with by the Lord’s wisdom, issues of ambition within us had been crushed severely by the Lord, and we were able to occupy a larger facility accompanied by the celebrations of the other brothers of the region.
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! … For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36).
