The Wilderness Wandering
Notes
Transcript
What are the things in our study we have covered recently? (Exodus, 10 commandments, golden calf)
We are going to skip ahead a little bit to Numbers 13-14
There are some things that happen in between to set this up. After the golden calf, Moses carves out new tablets for the 10 commandments. Then they build what is known as the tabernacle. This will be the meeting place for the spirit of God. This is where the people would come to worship. Then, the book of Leviticus was given as law. This contains different types of law, but the main idea of the law is to point people to being holy. While
They then celebrate the 2nd passover. At this point, they are still in Sinai. About a month after this, they leave Sinai to head to the promised land. Now, in total, they are about a year removed from this incident with the golden calf. Now, they are at this pivotal point where they are about to walk into the promise of God. Even though they have been disobedient, God is offering them grace to keep his renewed covenant.
In the first few verses in chapter 13, we see the stage being set for them taking the promised land.
1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”
3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel.
God had promised these people this land. Remember what a covenant is. If you do this, then I will do this. So God was going to give the people the promised land, if they obeyed him fully. Blessing comes through obedience. But, do the people obey? Well they do go. But what we see is a conflict of perception vs. reality.
27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
They acknowledge that what they saw was what they were told they would see. But, they said that it wasn’t all that they saw.
28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.
But! Yes, we have seen what is promised, but… Should we expect anything less from the people of Israel at this point? Now, we aren’t much different though. How often are we supposed to walk in obedience and then say, well God, but…
So we have these people saying this. But we also have Caleb and Joshua who were spies, and they have seen the exact same things that the other 10 spies have seen. The difference is their perspective of the whole situation.
30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”
He has heard the promises of God. He knows that if they are obedient, then God is going to bless them. So he wants to follow through with this. But there is a great majority that doesn’t want to.
31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.”
32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.
33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
We should not go! That is what they told the people. It has nothing to do with the promise of God but the perception of man. Have they forgotten what God has done for them? Have they forgotten the escape from slavery? Have they forgotten the Red Sea? Have they forgotten the victorious battles? Have they forgotten the provision of food and water?
They would be dead if they would have relied upon themselves for all of these things. Yet again though, they are choosing to rely upon the decisions of men rather than the wisdom and power of God. The spies have now instilled fear into the people. They were afraid that God would not be able to provide for them.
And just like us, their fear evolves. It turns into rebellion.
We read about Moses leading the people, and Moses is such a great picture of Jesus. He is patient with them, he listens to their complaints, he is questioned constantly. Yet, he still loves the people and he wants what is best for them. And what is best for them is to obey God. As a pastor, I look to Moses and see that he is a great picture of what a pastor should be. He is questioned and ridiculed, yet he is constant and consistent. His focus is not on what the people want, but what God wants for the people.
1 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.
2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Slavery sounds better than going into the promised land. We would rather be building bricks that living in a place of milk and honey.
What are ways that we can relate to this?
The people want to be disobedient but Moses wants better for them.
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel.
6 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes
7 and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.
8 If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.
9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”
Moses’s plea was not good enough. In fact, they wanted to kill Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua. But God intervened.
10 Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.
The people have lost confidence in God. Not because God stopped providing for them, but because they believed the lies. This takes us back to the garden of Eden when the serpent questioned the promise of God. Now, people who are sinful because of the sin of Adam and Eve, continue to question the promises of God.
Now, do you think God is about tired of this? I mean, he had dealt with the incident with the golden calf and wanted to start over again with Moses. Moses pleaded that God show mercy and he did. Now, a year later, and they are in the same position again.
11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?
12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
God said that he might as well strike them all. The way that they spoke to Moses and believed about God. He says that they deserve pestilence. Diseased for judgement. Can you imagine loving a people so greatly to lead them out of slavery, point them to God time after time for them to deny God time after time? I am not sure that my reaction wouldn’t be to tell God to “go ahead”. But he doesn’t. Moses intercedes for the people once more.
13 But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them,
14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say,
16 ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’
17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,
18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
He begs God to spare the people. He even says that if he does this, that all of the people around will start to think that God is not powerful because he couldn’t bring the people into the promised land like he said. And I think it is good for us to focus in on verse 18 when we think of our sins. That God is slow to anger and he abounds in steadfast love. That is what we get, we don’t deserve it, but we get it.
In verses 20-35, God answers Moses and says he will spare them and the people of Israel will get to go into the promised land, but only after they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Then, after all of the adults of Israel had died and the new generation has come, then they will inherit the land. God then kills the 10 spies who put fear into the people.
Now, after their great sin, and God’s forgiveness, God has said that he will fulfill his promise for their children. But even after this, they don’t think this is good enough. They think they know better than God. Have you ever thought that you know better than God?
Let’s see what they did.
39 When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly.
40 And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.”
41 But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed?
42 Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies.
43 For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.”
44 But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp.
45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.
They go into battle, against God’s will, and they are defeated. The people still wander for 40 years and God still sits on his throne.
So what can we learn from this?
Application: When faced with fear or uncertainty, choose faith over unbelief. Trust God’s provision and promises.
