God's Mercy and Grace is Exercised with Justice w.r.t. the Israelites

Numbers 14:20-35 God Responds Again to the Grumbling and to Moses’ Plea

Day 60. It is a Sunday and as I have done for three weeks now (with my wife accompanying me for two) we met a friend at the parking lot of our church. The Associate pastor came out to say hello and we gave him our offering (saves the postage) and asked him to pray with us. We just don’t want to get too comfortably out of practice of going to church and we know the Enemy has that very thing in mind. But with no shopping to do today, the rest of the day has us staying in our homes or outside in our yards.  I feel sorry for those that don’t have them although parks are now supposedly open. We press on.  Last time, we studied how the Israelites once again grumbled against God and how Moses pleaded with God to forgive them. And now we study God’s response.

The Passage

²⁰ So the Lord said, “I have pardoned them according to your word; ²¹ but indeed, as I live, ^[i]all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. ²² Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, ²³ shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it. ²⁴ But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, ^[j]I will bring into the land ^[k]which he entered, and his ^[l]descendants shall take possession of it. ²⁵ Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; turn tomorrow and set out to the wilderness by the way of the ^[m]Red Sea.”

²⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ²⁷ “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are ^[n]making against Me. ²⁸ Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you; ²⁹ your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your ^[o]numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. ³⁰ Surely you shall not come into the land in which I ^[p]swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹ Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. ³² But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. ³³ Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will ^[q]suffer for your ^[r]unfaithfulness, until your corpses ^[s]lie in the wilderness. ³⁴ According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your ^[t]guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know My opposition. ³⁵ I, 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.’”

Footnotes

i.      and all

j.      him I

k.     where

l.      seed

m.   Sea of Reeds

n.     Complaining

o.     mustered

p.      raised My hand

q.     bear

r.      fornications

s.     are finished

t.      or iniquities

Thoughts on the Passage

God right away responds to Moses and once again grants his prayer immediately. He pardons His people. What is key for us to note here is that the fervent prayer of those who love others is not wasted on God. Our prayers can and do make a difference – perhaps not always the way we want or to the degree that we want, but I believe God listens and consider our prayers, and where appropriate may ‘adjust’ (for lack of a better word) His judgment on those on whose behalf we are petitioning Him.  God said He did this, the pardoning, “according to [Moses’] word”.

However, those who have seen God’s glory and signs, and were yet testing Him (the passage says “ten times” – really just means “many times”), or who spurned Him, were not to see the Promised Land. Those two verses of this 14^th chapter – verses 22 and 23 are seen by many as the most key verses in the whole book. You can be pardoned by God, and all may not be lost – but you may not necessarily have the easiest of lives for the rest of your days. We must remember that sinning against God in this most blatant manner as carried out by the Israelites is not a small matter. There are still consequences to our sins. David Guzik has an interesting comment on this. He points out that we should remember how earlier they were saying, “Oh, if only we had died in this wilderness.” We studied that recently. Well, God, was going to grant the grumblers that wish or complaint as well. The alternative Matthew Henry points out is that God could have cut them off all at once (including the children) and disinherited them. One could almost say the Israelites got a deal that day.

Caleb, on the other hand, would see the land because of his different “spirit” and because he had followed God “fully”. And his descendants were also to benefit from that. Robert Jamieson says that Caleb was perhaps not named here because he was already not among the people that God wanted addressed as he was already assigned to be a constant attendant to Moses.

Is there something there for us? Caleb would see the Promised Land because of his heart and obedience, and so would his descendants. Is there a possibility that God might save our descendants simply because of our heart and obedience? But doesn’t the New Testament require each of us to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as savior on our own? It does. So, did something change between the two Testaments? I don’t think so. I think we need more study here. One possibility is that Canaan and heaven are not one and the same. So we can’t draw the same conclusion for who can get into heaven by looking at who God allowed to enter Canaan.

And God does not want to debate His decision with Moses, but simply told him that the Canaanites and Amalekites lived in the valley before them, and the next day he was to lead the people back to the wilderness by way of the Red Sea, and away from the land they were to have possessed.

Some English translations put this comment amount the Canaanites and Amalekites in parenthesis, as a secondary comment.  It is not.  This was central to the story. God did not want even these faithless and unprepared, spiritually and perhaps physically, people and their children to be slaughtered by those they feared. But would the people obey Moses instructions? (We’ll find out in our next study.) For now, we know that God had brought them to the borders or edges of the Promised Land – they could have possessed it, they could have taken it – with His help. But they lost their faith and they were disobedient.  So, it was back to “boot camp” in the wilderness for more training that would allow, not them but their descendants, to take the land. Forty more years – what a price to pay for disobedience.

Then God addressed Moses and Aaron together. He asked them how long He was expected to put up with these ‘evil’ grumblers. He wanted Moses and Aaron to tell them that they would fall dead in the wilderness – every single one of those that grumbled and were over twenty years of age. Only Caleb and Joshua were going to make it to the land that God had promised. And here God next extends His goodness to their generations as well. They would see the Promised Land that their fathers rejected. And by the way, the Israelites were to be told that they were to spend forty years in the wilderness as shepherds suffering in life for the unfaithfulness of their fathers.

If you remember back to Numbers 14 and verse 3, the Israelites had accused God of not caring for their children and that He was gone to allow them to be murdered in the wilderness. Well, as Guzik points out, ironically, God was going to see that their children made it to the promised and that they, the parents, were going to die in the wilderness.

But did you notice that not even Moses or Aaron were excluded from those that would not make it? No sir. They didn’t make it for their own separate reasons as we’ll learn later. But even here, we can point out that Moses also played a part in God’s anger as he had agreed to sending spies to the land rather than trusting God and just going in and taking it.

In fact, God said that the number of years the Israelites had to spend in the desert were based on the number of days the spies spied out the land. During that period, they would bear their guilt and know His anger and opposition to their behavior. [The King James version says His “breach of promise” but I see it as a temporary breach of forty years.] So, God pronounced a verdict and He was going to carry it out -- death in the wilderness after a forty-year period of suffering. Wow. You see, God was not going to allow any “old man of disbelief” into His promised land. They had to die in the wilderness. Similarly, there is no room for those who are unbelievers in the Kingdom.

But perhaps there were other reasons why God sent them back into the wilderness for forty years. Henry suggests the following. First, that time was needed for another adult generation to grow up and be able to take the land in battle. Second, and perhaps more representative of the character of God was that now, in the wilderness, having understood their sin, having been forgiven, some of the grumblers could get their hearts and lives right before, and with, God. Henry says it this way:

“That hereby they might be brought to repentance, and find mercy with God in the other world, whatever became of them in this. Now they had time to bethink themselves, and to consider their ways.”

Once again, God shows us that “mercy there was great” in His dealings with His people.  It reminds me of the that wonderful hymn, At Calvary by the Collingsworth family.

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Examining Jesus’ Humanly Outrageous Statements

A Man Who Told Us The Truth

Author: Will Davis, Jr.

Published by: Sangre de Christo, Austin, Texas, 2016

Will Davis, Jr., an American Pastor takes all of Christ’s seemingly outrageous statements and dissects them one by one for the skeptics. All he asks in return is that we answer his questions on what he proposes. The book is about “ultimate summits” and “wrestles with questions of truth and spiritual realities”.

Davis tackles Christ’s “I am Truth” statement and the more objectionable one which claims “I am the only way to God the Father.” He cautions us that to do justice to the investigation of Jesus’ claim, we cannot in any way dilute them. We must examine them as He stated them, using no substitutes or making any excuses as to what He meant to say.

The author shows us time and again how many of Christ’s statements, not just those about Him and His Father (God), were countercultural, counter theological and counter to everything previously taught about God.

There is an interesting section in the book that deals with how often the reader’s experience with his/her own father (or lack thereof) plays out with respect to their perception of God, as a Father. He pulls no punches here.  Well worth reading the book just for that. Tied to that discourse is Davis’ take on how Jesus Himself may have gotten His own impression about His Father.

Other topics Jesus spoke about and thus ones the author addresses are His views with respect to evil and the devil, love, and heaven. Davis’ logic is most thought-provoking at times, such as when he wonders what’s left with respect to evil and its source, if Jesus were wrong about the devil? Who’s left to blame, he asks? And suggests that it may be “us”. Related to this area, Davis also connects Jesus’ being right or wrong to how well evolutionary theory handles the implications. He writes, “Evolution bets the farm on the material world being all there is.” And then he takes it much further.

Jesus talked a lot about “love” and the author tells us that Christ’s love was intended to be – lopsided. It cannot be ‘expected’ to be returned. He writes, “It is unconditional, unmerited, unearned and unmeasured love. It is unjustified love.” Davis says that’s what Jesus was talking about and that’s what He gave to His disciples and wanted them to give to others. That’s how they’re to be known as His.

Turning his attention to ‘heaven’, Davis gives some compelling arguments that not only are we incomplete without it, but that heaven itself is incomplete without us. His reasoning will surprise you but it does make sense. Here’s a clue. Ask yourself why Jesus wept over His dead friend Lazarus when He knew He was about to raise him from the dead just minutes later? And the answer Davis provides to that question has a significant impact on the very moment of our own deaths.

Interestingly, Davis says Jesus never claimed to be a religious leader nor intend to establish a religion. In fact, he shows us how Jesus hated religion. But Davis goes one step beyond what one normally hears from pastors; he actually deals at great length with the issue of “what about the millions that have died or are dying having never heard about Jesus?” You’ll need to read the book for his answer.  Suffice it to say that while I was surprised by it, I can also buy into it.

The book needs to be read, enjoyed, and appreciated from the perspective of someone searching for the Truth. Believers need to read it and then buy copies to give those they care about sharing the Truth with. Highly recommended.

* Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, September 24, 2016. www.accordconsulting.com

*  Get the book here: http://astore.amazon.com/accorconsu-20

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What you don't want to hear is: "Big Mistake. Big Mistake. Huge Mistake."

The Lampstand

                        

Photo courtesy of: http://www.templebuildersministry.com/ -- please do visit their site.

Exodus 25:31-40: “Then you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand and its base and its shaft are to be made of hammered work; its cups, its bulbs and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. Six branches shall go out from its sides; three branches of the lampstand from its one side and three branches of the lampstand from its other side. Three cups shall be shaped like almond blossoms in the one branch, a bulb and a flower, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bulb and a flower—so for six branches going out from the lampstand; and in the lampstand four cups shaped like almond blossoms, its bulbs and its flowers. A bulb shall be under the first pair of branches coming out of it, and a bulb under the second pair of branches coming out of it, and a bulb under the third pair of branches coming out of it, for the six branches coming out of the lampstand. Their bulbs and their branches shall be of one piece with it; all of it shall be one piece of hammered work of pure gold. Then you shall make its lamps seven in number; and they shall mount its lamps so as to shed light on the space in front of it. Its snuffers and their trays shall be of pure gold. It shall be made from a talent of pure gold, with all these utensils. See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain.”

We come now to the third piece of furniture God wanted constructed by the people of Israel – a lampstand of pure gold. He gives them specific instructions that one reads in this passage.  There are a few special aspects we should point out. The text speaks of “bulbs” and one could well say, “Wait a minute, they didn’t have bulbs, as in light bulbs, in the day of Moses.” And one would be right. This lampstand would not even be lit with candles. Instead, the ‘cups’ that were shaped like almonds, but also looked like flowers, made of gold, were to be filled with oil and a wick placed in them, which would be lit.  But once lit, they were to remain lit, and so we imagine the wick and the oil would need replacing and replenishing often. David Guzik suggests the use of the almond blossom image is significant in that it is the first tree to blossom in the springtime. I draw from that the “children of Israel” were the first of God’s children and the real light (Jesus Christ) came to them first.

It would have six branches going out from it, three on each side, and the center post shall have four ornaments looking like flowers on it, likely spread out from the top to the bottom of the stand, the top one also used as a lamp along with the other six ornaments – so seven lamps (or lights) all together.

And if that’s not enough detailed instruction, God wants the flame in each of the seven lamps to be placed in such a way that each one sheds light on the space before it.  Accessory equipment like the snuffers and the trays they sit on are also to be made of pure gold.  Wow not even ladies of the southern aristocratic families of the last century had these many demands for anything they ordered for their fancy plantation homes. And God drives home His request by telling Moses to make sure that all these things are made in accordance to the pattern He gave to him on the mountain.  Our God is a demanding God.  But here’s the newsflash – He has every right to be.  And once again that is the hardest foundational hurdle of faith for us to overcome, and the rest comes easy. For those that are looking for a better (from a human perspective) explanation, Chuck Smith says God wanted it exactly the way He wanted it “because it has to be an exact thing if it’s going to be a model of the heavenly.” Then he points out that in Hebrews 8:5 we are told that that’s exactly what it is.

Remember this lampstand (along with the Ark and the ‘table of showbread’) was to be kept in the structure that God instructs His people to build next – the tent we call the Tabernacle. The lampstand was to be the light in the tent that would be completely covered and thus needed internal light, but Chuck Smith commentates, “it really was a symbol of God’s desire for the nation Israel to be the light of the world.”

Matthew Henry takes the symbolism one step further. Until the real Light (Jesus Christ) was to come to earth (for He already existed in the heavens), God was not left without witness of His existence. The lamp, to Henry, represented the commandments of God, and the lights of this lampstand the law.  The branches from the lamp were the prophets who gave light in their time throughout the Old Testament.

As interesting as all this symbolism is, I must remind myself that it is all symbolic and sometimes left to the interpretation of commentators.  However, what we should not ignore to any extent is God’s caution that He now has repeated twice and I believe does so again later in Scripture.  Simply put, it is “Follow the Instructions!”  Not, “If all else fails, follow the instructions!” But follow them the first time. Henry says, “Nothing was left to his (Moses’) own invention, or the fancy of the workmen, or the people’s humor; but the will of God must be religiously observed in every particular.”

And here’s why this is so significant according to Henry: “All God’s providences are exactly according to his counsels, and the copy never varies from the original.  Infinite Wisdom never changes its measures; whatever is the purposed shall undoubtedly be performed.” That’s critical.  God’s principles do not change.  If something was wrong in the days of Israel, it’s wrong today. If God desired a relationship with us in the day of Moses, He desires a relationship with us today. And so on. And thus His representatives in the Church today must administer all his ordinances according to His instructions. Jesus Himself echoed this when in Matthew 28:20 He said, “Observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

In the business world today, contractors lose their jobs if they fail to follow the exact specifications of the blueprints they are given. Engineers can get sued if they fail to build a product to spec. Deaths can result from such disobedience. So we all do our best to follow the instructions to a tee if we want something to work well. But for some reason, when it comes to either our relationship with God, or in our obedience to His directions for our lives, we think we can improve on the design or the process.

Many of you have seen the old movie with Julia Roberts were she, looking a little like a tramp, was refused service when trying to buy something at a very expensive store on Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills, California. She was asked to leave.  Later in the week, she drops in to the same store, loaded with several bags from a competitor elite retailer, finds the same saleslady, holds ups all her shopping and utters her famous line, “Big mistake. Big mistake. Huge mistake.” You ask what’s the connection? Simply this: When God tells you to do something, do it.  If you’re there to serve others – don’t pick and choose who you serve; serve all that God brings your way.  And you can draw many of your own inferences.  The point is you don’t want God or the angels He sends in disguise coming back and saying, “Big mistake.” Let’s get serious about God’s instructions and let’s follow them religiously. 

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A Process by which to Determine if a Specific Promise of God's is Meant for You

Who is the Angel God Sends To Guard the Israelites On Their Way?

Exodus 23:20-21: “Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him.”

I do not know about you, but whenever I read a promise of God’s like this one, the Enemy starts working on me: “This is not for you; it’s only meant for the people of Israel at that time. So don’t count on it.” There are several courses of action one could take with that kind of taunting.

1.     You can disregard the taunting, claim the promise, while merrily singing the old chorus you learned as a child, “Every promise in the book is mine!”

2.     You can believe the taunting, never thinking any more about the promise, and go on doing life as you normally do – wondering whether or not you are forced to fend for yourself.

3.     You can agree with some Bible scholars that believe certain promises were made to certain individuals or groups and are not to be taken as being for us, but this will require an investigation as to whether or not this is one of them.

You can weigh the likelihood of any of the three choices being correct or incorrect against your:

a.     Understanding of God based on the rest of Scripture,

b.     Ability to reason it out,

c.     Knowledge of what believers have traditionally believed, and

d.     Personal experience.

Using these four criteria, you can then examine each of the three options:

1.     Disregarding the taunting and claiming the promise may satisfy criteria a., c., and possibly d. above, but b. may present some problems especially as you may tend to agree with the rationale that certainly God makes promises to specific people at specific times and since He was talking to the Israelites in this passage, that may not include me.

2.     Believing the taunting and not claiming the promise, for the Christian, will likely not satisfy criteria a., c., and perhaps d.

3.     Investigating the promise has the potential of satisfying all four criteria – a., b., c., and d.

To take that course of action, i.e. investigating the promise before we can claim it for ourselves, we need to first examine the context of the promise. Was it made to someone or a group as a particular promise for a specific one-time response to an explicit circumstance?  Or is there enough generality in it that could apply to many of us in most aspects of, and during our entire, life? Secondly, we would ask ourselves as to whether or not this promise is in keeping with other parts of Scripture that repeat similar concepts to other believers? Thirdly, does it make sense that God, assuming Him to be what we believe He is, would make this kind of promise to all His children? Fourth, what do other true believers, for the most part, believe? And finally, what is my personal experience with regard to the content of this assurance?

In this particular case, my personal investigation of this promise, leads me to believe that it is one that I can claim.  Keep in mind that the Israelites were going to spend forty years in the desert and God knew that.  This is clearly not a promise in return for a one-time action required on their part – it is to become a way of life for them. There is enough generality in it so as to be applicable to many. For example, it speaks of “guarding us along our way” until He brings us to a place He has “prepared for us” and it speaks to “obedience”, our “rebellion”, and our “pardon from sin”. All of which are spoken of elsewhere in Scripture.

In addition, the promise is in keeping with our understanding of God as we know and believe Him to be. It is a promise that has been widely accepted by many believers.  And finally, for me at least, it is a promise I have seen fulfilled time and time again in my own life, my own experience.

Having hopefully established that, we can look more closely at the promise God is making here.  To begin with, He is “sending” an “angel”. God is the mastermind here. He has delegated this most important task to someone else in which He has great confidence. But this is no ordinary angel but rather one that has God’s name in Him.  It is an angel that must be obeyed.  It is an angle capable of freeing us from our bondage (Egypt for the Israelites) and delivering us to the Promised Land (Canaan for the Israelites and Heaven for us). And this angel has the power to pardon our sins and those of the Israelites. It is no wonder that the majority of biblical commentators agree that this is the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Jesus was given this task by God His Father and as the Son, God’s name was in Him. This was a real task, not just a make-work project but at the same time, it was a proto-type of what Jesus would do for all mankind.

Our job is to be on our guard before Him and to obey His voice throughout our journey in the wilderness of life.  The entire New Testament tells us how. But the bottom line is this: we are not to rebel against Him, for He will not pardon our transgression.

I hope you can claim this promise with me.  But I also pray you understand its consequences should we fail to claim it and choose to obey.

Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to receive free updates. We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources. Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar. And please share this blog with your friends. Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.  And while you’re here, why not check out some more of our recent blogs shown in the right hand column.  Ken.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.