Don't Be A Stumbling Block
“‘I, Yahveh (the Lord), have spoken, surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they will die.’ As for the men who Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report … even those men who brought out the very bad report concerning the land died by plague before Yahveh” (Numbers 14:35-37).
The congregation that were twenty years and older, all died in the wilderness (except for Joshua and Caleb); but the ones who spread the bad report and caused the epidemic of faithlessness were smitten first and foremost with the plague. What came to my mind were Yahshua’s (Jesus’s) words, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” than to cause anyone to stumble on their path into My Presence (Matthew 18:6).
We have got to be careful, we cannot put stumbling blocks before people. Apostle Paul says that we are to give “no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry not be discredited” (2 Corinthians 6:3). To cause anyone to stumble will be worse for us than we can imagine. Do we think we can go about our fleshy business, affecting the glory of Yahveh (the Lord) in a negative way, affecting other people so they can’t see the glory or be drawn into His Presence, and that we will be unscathed and unchastised? “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 16:25). “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). May none of us have a millstone ever put around our necks.
Apostle Paul says, “For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Messiah Yahshua (Jesus)” (Philippians 2:21). You have your own selfish interests, your own selfish ambitions, your own desires, your own obligations, and your own this or that. What about the interests of Yahshua (Jesus), singling that out, and exalting His interests above all else? Put your mind on heavenly things above instead of on these earthly temporal things below (see Colossians 3:2).
