Obedience and Rest
Notes
Transcript
Context
Context
The people of Israel, led by Moses had come to the border of the land of Canaan, just beyond the wilderness of Paran. The Lord instructs Moses to send men to spy our the land of Canaan, which He is giving to the people of Israel (13:2). Moses was to choose a man from each tribe of Israel on this mission. This twelve-man reconnaissance team conducted their mission for forty days. When they returned from their mission, they gave their report to Moses and Aaron. They reported that the land good. It flowed with milk and honey. But, they were honest about the strength of those occupied the land.
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. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”
So these were the facts. It was all they hoped and expected the land to be, but it did not appear it would be easy to take it. This apparently provoked alot of discussion. People talking over one another. Caleb, one of the spies from the tribe of Issachar spoke up:
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.”
Now if this were a movie, we might expect this to be the inspiring speech the men needed to hear to summon their courage to take the land. We would expect that Caleb’s words would be met with a resounding shout of resolve to take the land the Lord had promised them!
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.”
Talk about anticlimactic! Caleb said, let’s go in the strength of the Lord who has promised us this land, and his fellow spies say, we can’t because our enemies are too big.
Well buy this time the spies’ report about the strength of those who occupied the promised land had spread among the Israel. They were afraid. They were angry. They believed the obstacles that were in between them and what the Lord had promised were insurmountable and that the only option they had was to give up. They had finally made it to the border of Canaan, but they were ready to turn around, go back to Egypt AND on top of that, they wanted dismiss Moses as their leader and choose another to lead them back to the land of their former slavery.
We know what it is to know the promises of God, to face opposition to those promises and contend with doubting God because of that opposition. Fear may be our reaction. Perhaps we become angry because of how difficult it is to just be who God has called us to be and to do what God has called us to do. When we go down this road of unbelief, the way forward can be difficult to identify and we do not enjoy the rest that the Lord has given His people.
The message that Caleb and Joshua speak to this troubled and rebellious people is the message that people who struggle to believe the promises of God today:
7 … “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.”
Because the Lord is with us, we do not have to fear. The people wanted to be done with the strugle… the opposition, but they did not believe the Lord could provide that on His terms. They wanted it on their terms. Well, we would prefer that Joshua and Caleb’s call for trust in the Lord was met with repentance and faith, but instead the people wanted to kill them. They wanted to stone them.
Through all this, what has not changed are the purposes of God. God will still bring His people into the land. The Lord’s anger is kindled by the people’s grumbling and rebellion, but through Moses’ pleas for mercy, the Lord pardons the people. There were consequences for their disobedience, but the Lord would fulfill His promise.
God is merciful. His mercy is seen most clearly in the intervention of Jesus Christ to take the wrath of God against our sin. May we find rest as we believe His promises.
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.”
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.” 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.
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.”
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.”
20 Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. 21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. 25 Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
26 And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27 “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. 28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35 I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
36 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— 37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. 38 Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.
39 When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly.
