The Rebellious Heart
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Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 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! 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?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. 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 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. 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. 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.” 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.
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? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
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, 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. Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, ‘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.’ And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘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.’ 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.”
Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, 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, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 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. 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.”
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.”
If we’re honest, our reading from the book of Numbers is a perfect description of the inner monologue that comes to the surface during Lent.
Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 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! 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?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
At this point, when we see how Israel acts, we can respond one of two ways, like the Pharisee or the tax collector. We can lift up our eyes and with a loud voice proclaim thanks to God that he hasn’t made us like these rebellious Israelites. No, we would never treat the goodness of God with such ungrateful contempt. OR, when we look at Israel’s attitude, we can respond like the tax collector and say, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner, another sinner.
To me, the narrative in brings to mind insights about myself at my worst moments, and even, humanly speaking, what would appear to be my best moments. The pride of “accomplishing God’s work for him.” At the moment we turn to Christ in the pursuit of greater obedience and the desire to follow him more closely, the business of life, the various lusts of the flesh, and the enemy of our souls drum up a micro-rebellion. It can last for milliseconds or months. Or years, really. For some our passage doesn’t describe the rebellious heart surfacing in the face of spiritual discipline. For some, the rebellion expands and becomes a way of life. Some literally cry out, weep, grumble, wish for death; or worse, they wish for the life they lived before ever knowing God.
In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews addresses this very passage and that very temptation— to pretend like this Christianity thing is just a phase or a thought exercise, or a group of nice people I know.
I’d like to spend a moment there, so, if you have your Bible, turn to
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
One major lesson that even the earliest Christians learned and, in the Book of Hebrews, taught from this passage in Numbers, is that even people who have seen God’s deliverance, who have left a life of sin and godlessness, grow impatient waiting for results, grow discontent in the journey, and want to throw in the towel. And this passage in Hebrews says, don’t let sin corrupt your heart so that unbelief reigns there. It’s another warning against the spiritually blinding effect sin has on us. All-out rebellion can look like turning away from God, but it can take more insidious forms too. Soren Kierkegaard describes, in a parable, a man who walks away from God, facing backwards. This person might be smiling and waiving to God like he intends to walk toward him, but keeps taking backwards steps, until God is absent from view. This person is doing what the book of Hebrews warns us against. He’s thinking he’s got this religion thing under control, running on auto-pilot, maybe intending to draw close to God, but keeping a safe enough distance to never see himself as needing Christ ever again. I’m not sure which form of rebellion is more destructive.
Whatever the case, instead of walking away from God, while facing him or not, the Lord of the book of Hebrews and of the book of Numbers want us to hear the Word of God and believe. To trust in God’s promises in Christ. To be patient. Because the disorientation from leaving your spiritual captivity is worth it when you enter the rest that God has waiting for you. But you must thwart your lack of commitment to God and your lack of belief. And like you, the Israelites were not alone.
They had Moses and Aaron, but also the men who originally spied out the land. These men who had seen the land not only had personally seen the good end that the Lord was leading them to, but they trusted that God would be the one who accomplished it, “If he delights in us,” they said. The people responded by picking up stones to stone them. Rebellion can be self-delusion, but it can also be just outright rebellious. In this case, the peaceful, encouraging exhortation to calm down, to hang in there, to trust in God, was met with threats and full intention of murder.
The vast majority of the Israelites had made up their mind to reject God and go back to face re-enslavement or worse. Thank goodness it wasn’t a democracy.
God intervened in the attempted murder. He called a huddle with Moses, letting Moses know that he had had it with these people who had witnessed the plagues that God had orchestrated to free them from their captivity, only to willingly walk back to their captors. God was done. He was ready to start over with Moses and wipe the Israelites out. God didn’t need them, he could start over and make a super race of God-followers from Moses, just like he did with Noah. This reoccurring idea of God’s is something to be aware of. It should remind us that we are not doing God a favor by bringing him worship, though he accepts it graciously. He doesn’t need us humans to be complete. He is a Trinity, a tri-unity that expresses perfect and complete love and honor and much more within the life of the Godhead. We can’t appreciate God better than God appreciates God, and our appreciation doesn’t meet some need that God has. But even though God doesn’t need us, he fights for us. Hopefully that fact has been born out in your personal experience. Hopefully you’ve seen him work, beyond comprehension sometimes, to free you from the captivity you were in or could have been in. And after you’ve experienced your freedom, you have an advocate just like the Israelites did. Because of their advocate, God ultimately pardoned Israel from her death penalty. But a whole generation ONLY knew, only experienced a 40 year tension between leaving captivity and never arriving home.
Our appreciation doesn’t meet some need that God has. But even though God doesn’t need us, he fights for us. Hopefully that has been born out in your personal experience. Hopefully you’ve seen him work, beyond comprehension sometimes, to free you from the captivity you were in or could have been in. And after you’ve experienced your freedom, you have an advocate just like the Israelites did. God ultimately pardoned Israel from her death penalty. But a whole generation ONLY knew, only experienced a 40 year tension between leaving captivity and never arriving home.
Look at verse 20.
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.
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.
Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, 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, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 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.
The Lord leads Israel safely into the Promised Land, but not all of Israel. He will faithfully bring you and bring me into the Promised Land, but not all of me, not every bit of you. This process of sanctification that he leads us through, this time of waiting between being released from our captivity and entering our rest means that we aren’t getting out of this life unchanged. God is in the process of removing our rebellion one year at a time, as we walk with him. God gives us a new spirit, the Holy Spirit, to put down the rebellion in our souls. And we live to fight this fight because he gave us an advocate, a champion who has known our struggles and can help give you victory in that battle, someone who has been victorious in that battle himself. His name is Jesus Christ, and we will celebrate his victory in its fullness soon enough. Right now, in the last week of Lent, it’s enough to face our battle with the knowledge of his victory keeping us going.
The Lord leads Israel safely into the Promised Land, but not all of Israel. He
The book of Hebrews goes on to show us what or who can help give you victory in that battle, someone who has been victorious in that battle himself. His name is Jesus Christ, and we will celebrate that victory in its fullness soon enough. Right now, in the last week of Lent, it’s enough to remember his victory during our battle.MORE ABOUT THE ADVOCATE HERE: This advocate lived and died to take you with hi
This advocate lived and died to take you with hi
Listen to the words God says about people he’s freed from captivity in verse
So be encouraged this Lent. Don’t lose heart if the journey has gotten hard. Don’t lose heart if your freedom is disorienting. The freedom is worth it. It’s hard-fought and hard-won. Your commitment to Christ just has to survive the journey to the land of promise he is keeping for you.
The Israelites had an advocate in Moses
One last lesson we should take with us. The writer to the Hebrews was concerned that his hearers were in danger of turning back. That they didn’t
But what we deal with on a personal level, Moses and Aaron were dealing with on a national level.
But what we deal with on a personal level, Moses and Aaron were dealing with on a national level.
Dual warning:
1. Don’t give up if your life as a Christian isn’t working out as you thought it would.
2. Don’t start thinking you can do this Christian life without Christ (Hebrews 3)
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Untitled Sermon (2)
Untitled Sermon (2)
Untitled Sermon (2)
Thom Blair / General
Don’t say Alleluia yet, but, we are nearing the end of Lent: this time for giving extra focus to prayer and fasting and almsgiving and studying the Scriptures. Before we move into Holy Week, it’s a good time, here at the end of Lent, to think about how well we’ve used our opportunities this season. How well have we followed our commitments? It’s a good time to take a deep breath and ask, “How is my life as a Christian going?” You’ve probably seen some things in yourself that you can affirm. There is a closeness with God that can come from choosing to take God, his Word, and the things he values a little more seriously. God wants to confirm us as being truly His, and sometimes feelings of that confirmation are closer at hand when we are focused on doing His will. At other points in this season, and I know this is true for myself, you may have found some bit of ugliness you had forgotten about, some lack of generosity, or care for God or his word. These moments happen during seasons of focused self-denial. And if you experience them, you are not the first person to experience them.
If we’re honest, our reading from the book of Numbers is a perfect description of the inner monologue that comes to the surface during Lent.
ESV
Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 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! 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?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
At this point, when we see how Israel acts, we can respond one of two ways, like the Pharisee or the tax collector. We can lift up our eyes and with a loud voice proclaim thanks to God that he hasn’t made us like these rebellious Israelites. No, we would never treat the goodness of God with such ungrateful contempt. OR, when we look at Israel’s attitude, we can respond like the tax collector and say, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner, another sinner.
To me, the narrative in brings to mind insights about myself at my worst moments, and even, humanly speaking, what would appear to be my best moments. The pride of “accomplishing God’s work for him.” At the moment we turn to Christ in the pursuit of greater obedience and the desire to follow him more closely, the business of life, the various lusts of the flesh, and the enemy of our souls drum up a micro-rebellion. It can last for milliseconds or months. Or years, really. For some our passage doesn’t describe the rebellious heart surfacing in the face of spiritual discipline. For some, the rebellion expands and becomes a way of life. Some literally cry out, weep, grumble, wish for death; or worse, they wish for the life they lived before ever knowing God.
In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews addresses this very passage and that very temptation— to pretend like this Christianity thing is just a phase or a thought exercise, or a group of nice people I know.
I’d like to spend a moment there, so, if you have your Bible, turn to
ESV
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
One major lesson that even the earliest Christians learned and, in the Book of Hebrews, taught from this passage in Numbers, is that even people who have seen God’s deliverance, who have left a life of sin and godlessness, grow impatient waiting for results, grow discontent in the journey, and want to throw in the towel. And this passage in Hebrews says, don’t let sin corrupt your heart so that unbelief reigns there. It’s another warning against the spiritually blinding effect sin has on us. All-out rebellion can look like turning away from God, but it can take more insidious forms too. Soren Kierkegaard describes, in a parable, a man who walks away from God, facing backwards. This person might be smiling and waiving to God like he intends to walk toward him, but keeps taking backwards steps, until God is absent from view. This person is doing what the book of Hebrews warns us against. He’s thinking he’s got this religion thing under control, running on auto-pilot, maybe intending to draw close to God, but keeping a safe enough distance to never see himself as needing Christ ever again. I’m not sure which form of rebellion is more destructive.
Whatever the case, instead of walking away from God, while facing him or not, the Lord of the book of Hebrews and of the book of Numbers want us to hear the Word of God and believe. To trust in God’s promises in Christ. To be patient. Because the disorientation from leaving your spiritual captivity is worth it when you enter the rest that God has waiting for you. But you must thwart your lack of commitment to God and your lack of belief. And like you, the Israelites were not alone.
They had Moses and Aaron, but also the men who originally spied out the land. These men who had seen the land not only had personally seen the good end that the Lord was leading them to, but they trusted that God would be the one who accomplished it, “If he delights in us,” they said. The people responded by picking up stones to stone them. Rebellion can be self-delusion, but it can also be just outright rebellious. In this case, the peaceful, encouraging exhortation to calm down, to hang in there, to trust in God, was met with threats and full intention of murder.
The vast majority of the Israelites had made up their mind to reject God and go back to face re-enslavement or worse. Thank goodness it wasn’t a democracy.
God intervened in the attempted murder. He called a huddle with Moses, letting Moses know that he had had it with these people who had witnessed the plagues that God had orchestrated to free them from their captivity, only to willingly walk back to their captors. God was done. He was ready to start over with Moses and wipe the Israelites out. God didn’t need them, he could start over and make a super race of God-followers from Moses, just like he did with Noah. This reoccurring idea of God’s is something to be aware of. It should remind us that we are not doing God a favor by bringing him worship, though he accepts it graciously. He doesn’t need us humans to be complete. He is a Trinity, a tri-unity that expresses perfect and complete love and honor and much more within the life of the Godhead. We can’t appreciate God better than God appreciates God, and our appreciation doesn’t meet some need that God has. But even though God doesn’t need us, he fights for us. Hopefully that fact has been born out in your personal experience. Hopefully you’ve seen him work, beyond comprehension sometimes, to free you from the captivity you were in or could have been in. And after you’ve experienced your freedom, you have an advocate just like the Israelites did. Because of their advocate, God ultimately pardoned Israel from her death penalty. But a whole generation ONLY knew, only experienced a 40 year tension between leaving captivity and never arriving home.
Look at verse 20.
ESV
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.
The Lord leads Israel safely into the Promised Land, but not all of Israel. He will faithfully bring you and bring me into the Promised Land, but not all of me, not every bit of you. This process of sanctification that he leads us through, this time of waiting between being released from our captivity and entering our rest means that we aren’t getting out of this life unchanged. God is in the process of removing our rebellion one year at a time, as we walk with him. God gives us a new spirit, the Holy Spirit, to put down the rebellion in our souls. And we live to fight this fight because he gave us an advocate, a champion who has known our struggles and can help give you victory in that battle, someone who has been victorious in that battle himself. His name is Jesus Christ, and we will celebrate his victory in its fullness soon enough. Right now, in the last week of Lent, it’s enough to face our battle with the knowledge of his victory keeping us going.
So be encouraged this Lent. Don’t lose heart if the journey has gotten hard. Don’t lose heart if your freedom is disorienting. The freedom is worth it. It’s hard-fought and hard-won. Your commitment to Christ just has to survive the journey to the land of promise he is keeping for you.