GOD:
HIS LEADING; DISTRACTIONS

Imagine! Moses hired a guide to lead Israel through the wilderness! The circumstances being what they were, this seems almost incredible, but Moses was a man capable of making mistakes like the rest of us. And hiring Hobab was a serious mistake.…

What need do we have of Hobab’s eyes? Surely none at all.

Yet the Church has a whole army of Hobabs to which it looks eagerly for guidance and leadership. That Hobab has no place in the divine plan never seems to matter at all. That Hobab is an intruder, that his eyes are not sharp enough to search out the path, that he is altogether superfluous and actually in the way is passed over by almost everyone. God seems so far away, the Bible is such an old book, faith makes such heavy demands upon our flesh, and Hobab is so near at hand and so real and easy to lean on—so we act like men of earth instead of like men of heaven, and Hobab gets the job.

Now, who is Hobab? and how can we identify him? The answer is easy. Hobab is anything gratuitously introduced into the holy work of God which does not have biblical authority for its existence.…

Hobab is not an individual. He is whatever takes our attention from the cloud and fire; he is whatever causes us to lean less heavily upon God and look less trustfully to the guiding Spirit. Each one of us must look out for him in our own life and in our church. And when we discover him we must get rid of him right away.

Numbers 10:29–32; Proverbs 3:5–6; Jeremiah 9:23–24

The Price of Neglect, 15, 16, 17.