Numbers 14 & 15

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Numbers 14:1-45

“And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. 2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in the wilderness! 3 And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? 4 And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return to Egypt. 5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. 6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: 7 and spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. 8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. 9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not. 10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. 11 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? 12 I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they. 13 And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) 14 and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, 16 Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. 17 And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my LORD be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, 18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. 19 Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. 20 And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word: 21 but as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. 22 Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; 23 surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: 24 but my servant Caleb, because he had another Spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it. 25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea. 26 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 27 How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. 28 Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: 29 your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, 30 doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. 32 But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. 34 After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise. 35 I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die. 36 And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, 37 even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD. 38 But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, live still. 39 And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly. 40 And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned. 41 And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper. 42 Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies. 43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you. 44 But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.”

Introduction

[Audio version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED584]

“Chapter 14, we have come to Kadesh-barnea, we have come to the edge of the Promised Land, we have come to the edge of over 400 years of God’s plan, we have come to the realizing of what God had first said to Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees, ‘to get out of your land, away from your kindred to a place that I will tell you of,’ and that God showed him this land, that he had him walk through. God told him in Genesis chapter 13, ‘lift up your eyes, the length of it, the breadth of it, I will give it unto thee,’ and so forth. There are hundreds of years of promises that have been made. And now the children of Israel, a nation, between 2 and 3 million people have been brought to the border of this. And the spies have gone in and spied out the land as it were, and as they’ve come back ten of them have brought back an evil report ‘Yes the land is as the LORD said, filled with milk and honey, it flourishes, all kinds of growth there, it’s a flourishing land, it’s a prosperous land, but there are giants there, there are walled cities, there are things there that we’re afraid of, that we’re never going to be able to face.’ And yet Caleb and Joshua come back and say ‘No, no, let’s go in, the LORD is with us, let’s take this, let’s go in and get it.’ And we left off of there with the children of Israel being terrified because there were giants in the land. And as we begin chapter 14 we see how quickly discouragement spreads, we see how quickly ten men can infect an entire nation. I mean, it’s remarkable how quickly negativity can spread. The Bible tells us a root of bitterness, many can be defiled by it, that we have to be careful. So, it’s an interesting picture. Now look, God hasn’t given it to us just so we can look back and say ‘Boy those Israelites, they really had problems.’ That’s not why it’s here, so we can judge history. It’s there so we can judge our present. ‘1^st Corinthians chapter 10’ specifically tells us about these days and that they were written for our admonition, ‘upon whom the ends of the ages have come.’ Romans chapter 15 tells us ‘the things that were written aforetime we’re written for our learning and instruction, that through those things, examples, we might have hope.’ So there are lessons here for us as we look at this, entering into the promises of God. And you and I are called in this year of 2008 [and now in 2024] to enter in upon the things that God promised to the apostles when they walked with him, that God promised in the Book of Acts, that he promised in Romans, and in Corinthians, the things that the Church fathers embraced, the things that the Church has taken hold of for 2,000 years, you and I, God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and we’re still to enter into those things. Let me tell you something too, I look at the world we live in, the blessing and the curse of the day that we live in, is that the media has made us all more informed than any generation that’s ever lived. Our brains are washed constantly with more information than any generation that’s ever lived. The blessing of that, we see God’s Word being fulfilled around us, we see the nations prophetically being lined to receive Christ as he comes to set up his Kingdom, we see so many things put in place [even more so today]. But the down side of that, as Paul tells us, in these last days that men would be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, that the culture we live in would be driven by the flesh and by carnal things, and it would be an era when people would be drawn away from the Lord, by seducing spirits, doctrines of devils, not wanting really to enter into the things of God, holding the form of religion, but denying the power thereof, the Scripture tells us. So here we have a picture of Canaan, this promise that had been made to God’s people for hundreds of years, the whole nation is on the edge of these great incredible promises that God had made to them. And we’re watching them here in unbelief, ready to turn away from everything that God had promised. Now look, Canaan again for you and I, is not a picture of heaven, because there’s giants there, there’s at least 48 battles that we see in Joshua and so forth, when we get to heaven [into the Kingdom of heaven, which will be on earth (Rev. 21:1-23)] all that’s over. This is a picture of the promises that God has made to us. And as we desire to enter into them, so often we’re discouraged, so often we think there’s a giant there, so Christians wrestle with depression, and they’re convinced that that makes them unspiritual. I hear Paul say him and Silas despaired of life itself, they were so pressed out of measure, that’s depression whether you know it or not. David saying ‘How long will all of your waves and billows go over me?’ The Bible doesn’t condemn depression. On the other side of that, Paul and David are not saying ‘I think I’m going to take my life.’ They weren’t at that point of disparity. There are times when we struggle, there are times when God allows those things to come into our lives. And the question is, what do we do then? Do we take hold of the promises that he’s offered to us, and do we seek to make them our own? Do we seek that personal relationship with Jesus, where we come face to face with him, and the Word is not just a horizontal thing, it’s actually the Word of God. I think I’ve taught that. I think I’ve said that. I find myself sometimes in a difficult situation, then I remember, ‘Oh Lord, ya, this is your Word, that’s what I teach every Sunday, it’s the Word of God.’ And is it that real to us? And those times come in all of our lives, when we sit with it, we may read a verse that we think we’re completely familiar with, and it rises off the page, and it takes ahold of our heart, and all of a sudden there’s tears, all of a sudden we’re staggered, we realize we see it the way we have never seen it before. And God’s promises are there for us, bitterness, we can overcome that, fear, we can overcome that, condemnation, Satan is always out to condemn us, particularly as we draw close to Christ, there are those giants there. ‘You dare to draw close to Jesus, he knows what you think, he knows what’s in your mind, he knows the games you play, he knows about your lust, he knows about your anger.’ Wait a second, the Bible says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful, to the pulling down of strongholds, that we can bring every thought into the captivity of Christ. And he’s there, when we come to the throne of his grace, unto a High Priest that’s able to be touched with our infirmities, he understands, and God has laid such incredible things before us. And sometimes we founder and we flounder, let me say this more personally, sometimes I flounder and I flounder and I flounder and I flounder, imagine it’s much worse for me, because I teach on Sunday what you should do, and I don’t do it during the week sometimes. [I wish I had that many real flounders, they’re delicious fried up with butter and flour in a frying pan for breakfast.] You know, it’s terrible to have the Holy Spirit preaching my sermon to me all week. ‘I thought you said on Sunday,’ ‘I did, I thought it was for them, I didn’t know it was for me, you’re getting personal here.’ These incredible promises, centuries of them, they stand on the border of a land that flows with milk and honey, a land God had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, a land that God had promised to Joseph, to where he said ‘Don’t leave my body in Egypt, carry it up and put it there in a tomb in the land, because when the LORD comes that’s where I want to wake up, and stand up in my grave, and I want to see him when he comes,’ this land, and they’re on the border of it.

All The Children Of Israel Cry & Wept All Night In Discouragement

And verse 1 says “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in the wilderness!” (verses 1-2) I feel bad for him, you know usually in the church you always have a couple grumblers, but this was 2 to 3 million of them, ‘all of the children of Israel are murmuring against Moses’ Now this has to be one of the most discouraging things in the life of Moses. He’s 40 years old in Egypt before God takes him out into the wilderness, to care for the flocks of Jethro, he’s 40 years there, on the back side of the desert. And he finally has fulfilled what had been on his heart for 40 years, he is the deliverer, only he’s now done it God’s way, in God’s strength. And he comes to the edge of all that God had promised, and now the children of Israel are saying ‘We’re not going in there, I wish we had died in Egypt, Moses, I wish we had died in the wilderness.’ “And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return to Egypt.” (verses 3-4) Just imagine how Moses feels at this point in time. Joshua the son of Nun, 38 years after this, in Joshua chapter 5, will stand there and he will see the Captain that the LORD had chosen, the Captain of the LORD’s host, with a drawn sword. And Joshua will say ‘Are you for us or against us?’ and he’ll say ‘No, neither, but take the shoes off your feet, because the ground you stand on is holy ground.’ They had a Captain that would go before them. But here’s the thing, they’re walking by sight and not by faith. Sometimes we can’t even recognize who our friends are. Moses and Aaron, Joshua, Caleb, the best friends this nation had. And they were speaking the truth to them, ‘We can do this, the LORD has promised this to us, this is the dreams of generations to be realized here.’ And we’re going to find out they want to take up stones and stone them for that. You ever get in a situation like that? You’re talking to another believer, maybe they’re discouraged or they’re backslidden, and they want to take up stones and stone you. You’re trying to tell them spiritual things, you’re trying to tell them something that’s right, and they’re just mad, because they’re walking by sight and not by faith. And it’s very hard for them to hear from somebody whose walking by faith and not by sight. And what you say to them then sounds impractical ‘Oh ya, all things work together for the good! don’t tell me that verse, I know it, I shot it off the wall the other day, my shotgun, you know.’ And what you’re telling them is completely true, it’s the authority of God behind it. But because they’re walking and looking at the circumstance instead of the God of the circumstance, what you’re saying seems completely impractical to them, they don’t want to hear it. And they don’t even know who their friends are anymore. And they’re turning on Moses, turning on Aaron. It says “Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.” down on their faces, Moses and Aaron, get used to this position, “And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: and spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.” and look what they realize here, “If the LORD delight in us,” conclusion, “then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.” (verses 5-8) They’re like childlike in their faith, not childish, they’re saying ‘The LORD delights in us, he delights in us, he’ll wipe those giants out, this is his war.’ You know, the children of Israel when they had come through the Red Sea, and it’s mentioned so many times in the Old Testament, it made such an impression upon the nation, as they came through the Red Sea, and they sang the song there of victory on the other side, part of that song was this, ‘Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed, thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. The people shall hear and be afraid. Sorrow shall take hold the inhabitants of Palestina.’ the Philistines, ‘Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed, the mighty men of Moab trembling shall take upon them, all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away, fear and dread shall fall upon them by the greatness of thine arm, they shall be still as a stone, till thy people pass over O LORD, till the people pass over which thou hast purchased, and thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place O LORD which thou hast made for thee to dwell, in the sanctuary O LORD which thy hands have established. The LORD shall reign for ever and ever.’ When they had come through the Red Sea, their hearts were so stirred they said ‘LORD, the inhabitants of Canaan are going to hear of this, they’re going to tremble, fear’s going to take hold of them, you’re going to go in, you’ll do the battle, you’re going to drive them out, you’re going to give us the land.’ So look, as we come to Numbers 14, this is not a situation where they’re new believers or unbelievers, this is a journey in the life of a believer. [Comment: remember my comment in Numbers 11, where I showed through Scripture there that none of the 2 to 3 million Israelites had the indwelling Holy Spirit, except for Moses, maybe Aaron, Joshua, Caleb and the 70 elders that God put his Holy Spirit upon. That’s it. So Pastor Joe’s analogy isn’t taking this into consideration. These Israelites were not faith-filled believers, indwelt with the Holy Spirit. They only believed in God superficially, as many people in the world do. There is a difference, just understand that. But when he applies these passages to us, we that are believers, his points are well taken.] This is a journey in the life of a believer, that there are times in our lives when we see God’s hand, where his Word is alive to us, and we’re so stirred, and we’re so excited, we’re ready to take on the world for Christ, we’re ready to do anything. But we go through seasons, and there are seasons in our lives, and sometimes we settle, and sometimes our faith is tried, sometimes we come into circumstance that we hadn’t anticipated coming into. And they’re mandatory courses, they’re not electives, and God takes us there. And here now, several years later, here are the children of Israel, they are at the place they sang about, where ‘this is the place where you’re going, and to inhabitants of the land tremble, this is the place where you’re going to drive them out, this is the place,’ and now they get there [and because they don’t have God’s Holy Spirit in them] and they’re singing a different tune, ‘Ya, we’re here, but there are giants, we’re like grasshoppers, and all of them are giants.’ Not some of them now, but everything’s gone out the window, ‘and the cities are walled up to heaven,’ that’s a big wall. Everything has been exacerbated and blown out of proportion, and sometimes we get in that place, you know, the paralysis of analysis, we’re just negative, and that’s all we’re going to be. And God has to deal with our hearts. And I look here and I see Joshua, Caleb, they have ahold of the LORD, they’ve embraced his grace. You know, in the New Testament Jesus says ‘all the Father’s given to me, no man that comes to me will I in any way cast out. And the one’s the Father has given to me, they’re secure, because I’m in my Father’s hands, no one can take them out of his hand, nobody can take them out of my hand.’ And when we read through those things, we think ‘That’s wonderful,’ and then we get in a difficult circumstance and we’re thinking ‘Are you sure you can’t drop us? I know you said that, but, when you said that were you thinking about the situation I was going to get in? because I don’t think you were, Lord.’ Caleb and Joshua have taken hold of something the rest of them haven’t, and they said ‘Let’s go in and get them, let’s mow ‘em down, let’s trust the LORD.’ Only they say, “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.” (verse 9) You know, they had said ‘They’re going to eat us up,’ Joshua and Caleb said ‘We’re going to eat them up.’ Sounds like David here, running out to get Goliath, doesn’t it? The congregation said ‘Well, we should probably get stones and stone them to death, that sounds like a good idea.’

The Crowd Turns Mean, They Want To Stone Moses & Aaron

“But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.” (verse 10) Now they probably know that’s trouble. “And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?” (verse 11) Now look, God is not asking Moses a question. God is not without information. He doesn’t come to Moses and say ‘Moishe, how long do you think it will be before they believe me? Do you think we should work on this a month or two,’ no, that’s not it at all. He is testing Moses. He’s going to test Moses’ heart in this. Because look, let him test your heart. You know, sometimes you need be in the position of Moses or Aaron or Joshua or Caleb. Sometimes you might be surrounded with a group of believers [or quasi-believers like my kids who grew up in the church as children] that just don’t want to move forward. And what is your attitude, do you want to be then judgmental against them? Do you want to look down your nose and think ‘If only they had the faith, the faith that I have.’ We don’t see that in Moses. God is going to say to Moses, ‘Look Moses, let’s go to plan-2, let me smoke them, we’ll start over with you, and we’ll make a better nation than we got here.’ Moses doesn’t even go ‘Hmmm, let me think about that for a minute,’ Moses says ‘No LORD, you’re glory’s at stake,’ and we’re going to read it, but Moses’ heart is just what God wants it to be. And where your heart and my heart needs to be, when we’re around brethren that are struggling it isn’t so that we can be judgmental. We’re only strong by his grace, we could very easily have the perspective of the person that’s struggling right now, and they could be standing strong. If we are standing it is because God has been gracious to us. Paul said he had sought the Lord three times about a particular problem, even with fasting, and wasn’t answered, and God said ‘My grace is sufficient for you,’ he says ‘Therefore I would rather glory in mine infirmities, that in my weakness my strength would be made perfect.’ I have not come there yet, I’m a wimp in my infirmities, I whimper in my infirmities, Paul gloried in his. But it’s certainly so that we can reach out and help someone that’s struggling, not judging them, not looking down our noses at them. And Moses is such a remarkable man in this.

Moses Is Jealous For The Glory Of God

“How long,” God says, and he knows, “will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.” (verses 11-12) ‘We’ll start over,’ “And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.” (verses 13-14) Look, Moses you know, he would not enter the Land without God’s glory, without God’s reputation being intact, he said the inhabitants of the land know about it, we’re going to find that out 38 years later, as they come, the spies go in, and Rahab the harlot says ‘The whole land is trembling because of you, we’ve heard about your God, we know what’s happened.’ Moses says ‘I don’t want to go in, LORD, without your glory being intact.’ “Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my LORD be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,” (verses 15-17) Let me tell you something, Moses is jealous of the glory of God. You know, we need people today that are jealous for the glory of God, jealous for the glory of his Word and the truth of his Word. There is so much being watered down, so much being compromised. You know, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, over 100 Muslim theologians and clerics put out the big statement that the two major groups on the planet are Christians, and there’s several billion of us [I’d say far fewer really Holy Spirit indwelt Christians], and Muslims, there’s a little over a billion of them, that we make up most of the planet. And because we love God, and because we love our fellow man, therefore Christians and Muslims, we should all get together and be one big happy family, and we should be able to put down the things that separate us. And they worked on a statement, a reply, and there are a number of people that signed it. Now the rest of the Church is raising their voice, saying, ‘Hey, these guys don’t represent us, we believe that Jesus is the only way, there’s one name given among men whereby we must be saved.’ So much of that is being set aside for the sake of a one world religion, inclusiveness, a false peace that will never bring peace, there can never be peace without the Prince of Peace. When the Lord of lords and the King of kings comes and sets up his Kingdom there will be peace. There will never be a man-made peace built upon sabotaging the Truth of God for the sake of something, it’s insane, it’s insane. Moses is jealous of the glory of God. He says “And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my LORD be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,” (verse 17) Now Moses is going to refer back to Exodus 34, remember when the LORD passed in front of him, he said, “The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” (verses 18-19) He speaks back to God the thing that God had revealed to Moses about himself when he passed before him. He’s saying ‘LORD I know this is who you are,’ “And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word: but as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.” (verse 20-21) and we’re waiting for that day, aren’t we? It’s gonna happen. “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:” (verses 22-23) they tempted God as soon as they had come out after the Passover, they tempted him at the Red Sea, they tempted him at Marah, they tempted him in the wilderness of Sin, they tempted him at Rephidim, at Horeb, Taberah, at Kibroth-hataavah, they’re tempting him again here. He said this happened 10 times, and I don’t know if it’s exactly 10, but he’s saying ‘They’ve completely tempted me in every circumstance,’ probably is what he’s putting forth here. “surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: but my servant Caleb, because he had another Spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.” (verses 23b-24) Caleb, we’re going to hear that in Joshau, he followed the LORD wholeheartedly, here the LORD says ‘He’s followed me fully, Caleb.’ And by the way, Caleb, when we trace his ancestry, is Kenizite, he’s not even of the Children of Israel, he’s become part of the tribe of Judah, no doubt accepted now by the LORD as part of the tribe of Judah. But he’s someone who had come into this. I don’t know about you, I feel like I’m a Kenizite, I kind of came in, my dad was one thing denominationally, my mom was another thing denominationally, neither one of them were saved, they didn’t know the Lord, and you’re kind of raised bouncing around, and you realize church ain’t exciting enough to get them there Sunday morning, why should I go. You go through all of that, and yet, coming out of my paganism as it were, how God reached down to my life, where I was, the music I listened to, the drugs that I took, the morality that I had, the emptiness, the sin, he reached to me, and saved me, and told me that he loved me, that I could come just the way I was, there were no strings, there were no empty promises, there were no ‘You need to deserve this, you need to earn this.’ There were no conditions, it was ‘Come, believe, receive,’ how powerful. And Caleb has come to the LORD simply on the basis of his Word, believing, trusting. Caleb didn’t need spies, we need spies sometimes, don’t we? We find somebody who we think is more spiritual than us, we send out some spies, ‘What time do you get up to seek the Lord?’ [laughter] maybe I’m not earlier enough, you know. ‘Do you watch TV? You go to the movies?’ we kind of send out spies. Caleb didn’t need any of that, he just took the LORD at his word, embraced it, fully, wholeheartedly we’ll hear him described, wholly following the LORD, with his whole heart is the idea. He’s going to enter, and he’s going to possess it. Now, “(Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.)” (verse 25) Now they had already defeated Amalek by the LORD’s strength, by Moses holding up his rod, they were fighting, Joshua was down in the valley fighting, and Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ hand with the staff, and they defeated supernaturally the Amalekites, they’d already beat them, now they’re facing them again, they’re afraid [see https://www.unityinchrist.com/Exodus17-18.html]. [This must have been another group of Amalekites that lived up in the land of Canaan, and not those who were in the wilderness.]

The LORD’s Judgment Against All Who Disbelieve

“To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea. And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:” (verses 25b-28) well what had they spoken in his ears? ‘the whole congregation said unto him Would to God we had died in the land of Egypt, or would to God we had died in the wilderness,’ God says, ‘Special orders don’t upset us, as they’ve ordered it, as they’ve said it, that’s what they’re gonna get here.’ “as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:” ‘As your faith is, so be it unto you.’ “your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.” (verses 29-30) We spend a lot of time taking care of our carcases, don’t we. There’s all kinds of ads on TV to get rid of any blemishes on your carcases, to keep your carcase hair the right color, get your carcase nipped and tucked, trim your carcase down, there’s all kinds of carcase ab machines out there, and carcase juicers, there’s a lot of work out there on carcases. God’s got a different perspective than we do. I understand, some of your carcases are still very important, it gets to be something you drag around after awhile. When you can still see further ahead than you can see back, your carcase is still pretty important, but when you get to the place in life where you can see back further than you can see ahead, it’s time for the carcase to get an overhaul. In the Resurrection we get an upgrade, and that’s a good thing, we’re looking forward to that. Now he says in verse 30, “doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.” (verses 30-33) Now, very interesting here. The children are not suffering spiritually for the sins of the parents, but there are physical implications here. Very important for us to see, because there’s this teaching in the Church of generational sin, and because your grandma was a voodoo priestess and she entertained demons, therefore your mom, when your grandma wrote the Will she left them [the voodoo dolls] to your mom, and then your mom left them to you, and you have this problem you’ve inherited. Now Ezekiel 18 blows all of that out of the water, and God says ‘I never want to hear this again, ‘Our teeth are set on edge because our parents drank sour grapes,’ no, your teeth are not dead because of what your parents did, any more than you’re having spiritual problems. Yes, for the generations that continued to sin, there’s a curse upon the 3^rd and 4^th generation. He says but to all of those that love me, to a thousand generations he’s gracious. So the truth is, for you and I, sometimes there are implications in our lives, because of the things our parents did, sometimes we can grow up in poverty if our parents are alcoholics or spent all their money in Atlantic City. But spiritually you are not bound to the boundaries your parents experienced. You read Ezekiel 18, it describes that, that God’s blessedness and his promises to us are not determined by our parents behavior. If they were Satanists, if they worshipped idols, if they sacrificed blood, it says if the next generation turns to me, and they walk with me, and they keep my Word, I will bless them, they will not suffer for the sins of their parents. But if the generation after them is wicked again, God says, they’re not going to be blessed because the generation ahead of them was godly if they decide to turn away and do their own thing. It’s a great heritage for us if we’re godly and give that example to our children and our children walk with the Lord. And there are promises relative that, and we should seek that, and we hope to see those patterns [of sin from prior generations] broken. My life, mine was a generation that broke all of that in my family. My dad’s brother was a bootlegger and sold whiskey during prohibition, got Lue Gehrig’s disease and hung himself in the basement. My grandmother committed suicide in the over, three days before I was born my dad smelled gas, went down, she was dead in the oven. My first cousin committed murder, was in prison for 17 years, my grandmother’s first husband got in a gunfight with his girlfriend, shot each other, he died and she lived, and my grandmother ended up getting electric shock therapy in the 1940s. And there was enough insanity in my family, Christ saved me, and changed my life, and set me free from all of that. And through his Word in my life, my wife, my kids, my mother came to the Lord, my father came to the Lord, our kids are walking with the Lord, our grandkids are not walking yet [laughter]. But God is so gracious, he’s so gracious. And he says to them, ‘Your children, they’re going to go in and inherit the land, they’re going to wander for 40 years because they’re with you, and I’m not letting them in until your carcases fall in the wilderness. But after your carcases are gone, then they’re going to go in and they’re going to take what you said they weren’t going to have. You said the inhabitants of the land would eat them up, and your children would die, I’m going to prove you wrong. They’re too young for me to hold accountable, I’m holding you accountable, you’re going pass away, when you’re gone I’m going to take them into the land.’ He says it right here, “And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.” (verses 33-34) ‘You refused to believe, you made a breach of my promises, you’re going to know what that means.’ “I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.” (verse 35) Now isn’t it interesting, because he said he pardoned them. It doesn’t say they were all lost, it doesn’t say they all go to hell, there’s none of that here, God says to Moses ‘I will pardon them, but they’re never entering in to the things that God had for them.’ Isn’t it interesting? [Now here is a giant conundrum between what most Christians teach about going to hell, they teach that anyone that’s not saved in their normal lifetimes goes to hell. That is a general teaching most all of them teach. Now we’ve seen in Numbers 11 that all except for the 70 elders and Joshua and Caleb, Moses and Aaron and maybe a few of his sons, did not have the indwelling Holy Spirit. So by their own doctrinal teaching, these guys who died in the wilderness would had to have gone to hell. So Pastor Joe (and Christianity in general) are contradicting themselves. Now as we have seen in Numbers 11 that there is a set of Scriptures most Christians don’t realize, doctrinally speaking, the powerful significance of. And that is, that this set of Scriptures in Numbers chapter 11 verses 17, and 24-29, are directly showing us that the entire camp of Israel, from 2 to 3 million people, did not have God’s indwelling Holy Spirit within them, that they were not believers in the same sense that true Christians are. Meaning, when they die, they are not headed into the 1^st Resurrection to immortality the apostle Paul talked of in 1^st Corinthians 15:49-54. And we know the rest of the “unsaved” world, the Gentiles around them didn’t have God’s Holy Spirit in them either. So where do these folks (and by extrapolation, all of those who have ever lived and died) go when they die? Do they go to some everburning hellfire as most Christian theologians teach, and as most Christians sincerely believe? Here is a mystery which some Orthodox Jews may be closer to having an answer to, this conundrum that we Christians have had. Check this out. Ezekiel 37:1-14 is also the only Bible promise given to the Jews in Babylon of a hope that they would be resurrected back to life at some unspecified time in the future, and verses 13-14 of Ezekiel 37 actually show God giving his Holy Spirit to those resurrected in this resurrection. Now connecting the dots with the New Testament, we find that Revelation 20:11-13 shows this is the time of the Great White Throne Judgment, the 2^nd resurrection, when all of mankind will be resurrected back to life. Again, Ezekiel 37:13-14 shows that at this time, God will give everyone resurrected in this resurrection his Holy Spirit, offering them salvation, which for most coming up in this resurrection, will be the first time that has been offered to them. See https://unityinchrist.com/ezek/Ezekiel%20pt3-2.htm and scroll to Ezekiel 37:1-14 and read that section about what those verses mean.] Sometimes as Christians, you’ll see a Christian who never enters in, you know they’re saved, you believe when they die they go to heaven, but they struggle and wandered their whole life, and you think ‘Why didn’t they trust the Lord, why didn’t they enter into some of the blessedness they could have experienced?’

Those Ten Spies That Brought An Evil Report Died Right In Front Of Everybody

“And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.” (verses 36-37) evidently visibly, God judged them and the nation knew, God’s moving [i.e. they dropped dead in front of everyone’s eyes]. “But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, live still.” (verse 38) Now isn’t it interesting here, Caleb and Joshua are going to wander with this generation for 38 more years. What’s going to keep them going is the promise of an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fades not away. They’re going to make the long journey, in the middle of an unbelieving generation. But there’s something that’s set before their hearts, it’s like the blessed hope that God has given to us. The Scripture tells us that we should be able give to every man an answer for the hope that lies within us that we have. You and I, I know there’s an election coming up, I don’t think that’s going to solve all the problems, people shed their blood so we can vote, we should do that, we have a remarkable freedom to exercise, and we should do that, but I don’t think the U.N. is going to settle anything. In Israel, we’re thinking about planning a trip, in Israel, they’ll show you a hill where the United Nations has their headquarters, and the ancient name for that hill is “the hill of evil council.” In Israel they call them “the United Nothing,” that’s the U.N. We’ve been up on the border of Israel and Syria, where there’s supposed to be a United Nation’s peace-keeping force. There’s one guy in a telephone booth, with a blue helmet up there. ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m the United Nation’s peace-keeping force, I’m from Switzerland.’ ‘What happens if a war starts?’ ‘I get out of here and go home,’ the United Nothing. [Considering all the divisiveness and how the greater Body of Christ within the United States has become divided due to individual preferences over political parties, it has become apparent that Satan has been using the differing political beliefs of believers to divide the very Body of Christ within the U.S. I have an article on this website that addresses that very question, as to whether we as Christians ought to vote (see https://unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/America-ModernRomans6.htm )] What are we putting our hope in? The Lord is coming, he has an inheritance for us. I look around the world, I think he’s coming soon, you know, there’s a swell, a tension. Years ago when we first started the Bible study at Arthar’s, 1981,1982, if there was something in Time Magazine or something in the news you tried to fit it into prophecy, you know, sometimes you get one of those pieces of the puzzle that doesn’t really fit, but you jam it in. Now there’s so much going on I can’t keep up with it all, it’s every direction we look in, just the Lord’s hand, the Lord’s Word is being fulfilled all around us [he said this in 2008, now in 2024 you really can’t keep up with it all, with the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the Israeli-HAMAS war, and the civil war going on in Sudan, and major Chinese armament going on, with their naval fleet and aircraft carriers encroaching upon the Philippines, and European re-armament not seen since World War II, just to name a few things. Look what’s coming next: https://unityinchrist.com/prophecies/2ndcoming_4.htm ]. And it should be speaking to us about the days we live in, and the fact that Christ is coming. Caleb and Joshua finished this journey knowing that they would cross over, they had an inheritance that was in front of them, there was a promise of God that was real to them, that kept them going.

Moses Told The People Of God’s Judgment--They Attempt To Go Up Into The Promised Land On Their Own

“And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly.” Moses goes and tells them all that we’ve just looked at, “And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned. And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.” (verses 39-41) Now what they’ve done is they’re mourning ‘Oh no, God said we’re going to die, our carcases, oh no my carcase, it’s going to fall in the wilderness.’ So now they come back, they’re mourning, they said ‘OK, we’re going to huff and puff and blow the house down, we’re going to go up there.’ And they’re learning two lessons here, first of all, one of them is, that when the LORD tells you to go and do something, you and the LORD are always a majority. God will never ask you for obedience that his grace will not provide the means to perform. If God guides, God provides, and it will never be different than that. The other thing that we have to learn, is if try you to ever go up to do anything without him, it’s presumption and it never works out in the flesh. And they’re going to learn both things here. First, they didn’t want to go, it’s unbelief, and God said ‘OK, you’re not gonna go, as according to your own words, you want to die in the wilderness, ok, you’re gonna die in the wilderness.’ Now they’re saying ‘ah, mmm, we’re going to go up, Moses, just tell him, we’re gonna go, we’re going to go get ‘em now.’ And Moses said ‘Don’t do it. Now you’re sinning again, before you were sinning by unbelief, now you’re sinning by presumption, it’s not gonna work.’ “ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you.” (verses 41b-43) The only chance we stand of accomplishing anything is because he is with us. I’m so thankful that Jesus said to us ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the Age,’ that he never leaves us or forsakes us, that our relationship with him is based on a better covenant. Their relationship with God was based on their keeping his Law, their performance [all on their own, without God’s Holy Spirit, and we see how well they did that]. Our relationship with the Lord is based on his faithfulness, not our faithfulness, and I am so thankful. The Old Testament was based on them holding onto him, the New Testament is based on the fact that he holds onto us. You know, you got little kids, you take them across the street, a busy street, you’re not worried about whether they’re going to hold onto you or not, you’re holding onto them, you’re dragging them across, you got their hand. I remember one time I was down at the airport in Philadelphia and I saw this mom dragging her kid, he was about two years old, she was dragging him, his feet were dragging, and he was screaming ‘Aaaah! Help, somebody help! help!’ everybody was laughing, his mom was all red, she’s dragging this kid. And that’s the way the Lord is with us, in the New Testament, he’s got ahold of us, and he’s faithful. And in the end all of the glory will be his. Moses said ‘Don’t go up, you’ve turned away from the LORD,’ “But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.” (verse 44) It speaks of pride. When they went to battle there was supposed to be silver trumpets blowing, the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to go before them, the tribe of Judah was supposed to lead them, Moses was supposed to be there, and the Scripture says, they presumed to go up, nevertheless the ark of the covenant didn’t go, Moses didn’t go, they didn’t even depart out of the camp. “Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.” (verse 45) that’s never good when you’re “discomfited.” Now Hormah means “to devour.” Discomfited, refused to believe God, refused to trust God, then God said ‘ok, we’re going to exercise Plan-B,’ and then they said that ‘We’re going back to Plan-A,’ he said ‘that’s no longer functioning,’ and they said ‘We’re going to do it without you,’ and he said ‘No you’re not going to do it without me,’ and they ended up in Hormah. Look, not that we’re devoured, that’s not the point, the point is as you and I sit back, there are lessons here for us. What are the things that God is sometimes kindling in our hearts, he doesn’t break a bruised reed, he doesn’t quench a smoking flax, sometimes he’s kindling a flame in our hearts, he’s gently blowing it, and he’s bringing it to flame, and he’s given us a vision and a calling, he’s asking us to step out. And sometimes we balk, we’re afraid, ‘Not me, there’s giants Lord, the walls are too high, no I could never do this.’ Well God says to us, he doesn’t say ‘That’s it, your carcase is gonna fall in the wilderness,’ he says ‘Go back to Numbers 14 and see what you can learn there, see what you can learn there. I’m never going to leave you or forsake you. I don’t want you to try to do things without me, and I don’t want you to turn away when I have blessings I want to bestow upon you.’ Now look, chapter 15. We can do this…

Numbers 15:1-36

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you, 3 and will make an offering by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice in performing a vow, or in a freewill offering, or in your solemn feasts, to make a sweet savour unto the LORD, of the herd, or of the flock: 4 then shall he that offereth his offering unto the LORD bring a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part an hin of oil. 5 And the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt offering or sacrifice, for one lamb. 6 Or for a ram, thou shalt prepare for a meat [grain] offering two tenth deals of flour mingled with the third part of an hin of oil. 7 And for a drink offering thou shalt offer the third part of an hin of wine, for a sweet savour unto the LORD. 8 And when thou preparest a bullock for a burnt offering, or for a sacrifice in performing a vow, or peace offerings unto the LORD: 9 then shall he bring with a bullock a meat offering of three tenth deals of flour mingled with half an hin of oil. 10 And thou shalt bring for a drink offering half an hin of wine, for an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD. 11 Thus shall it be done for one bullock, or for one ram, or for a lamb, or a kid. 12 According to the number that ye shall prepare, so shall ye do to every one according to their number. 13 All that are born of the country shall do these things after this manner, in offering an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD. 14 And if a stranger sojourn with you, or whosoever be among you in your generations, and will offer an offering made by fire, or a sweet savour unto the LORD; as ye do, so he shall do. 15 One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance for ever in your generations: as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD. 16 One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you. 17 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 18 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land whither I bring you, 19 then it shall be, that, when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall offer up an heave offering unto the LORD. 20 Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heaven offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshingfloor, so shall ye heave it. 21 Of the first of your dough ye shall give unto the LORD an heave offering in your generations. 22 And if ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments, which the LORD hath spoken unto Moses, 23 even all that the LORD hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the LORD commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations; 24 then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one bullock for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour unto the LORD, with his meat offering, and his drink offering, according to the manner, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering. 25 And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their ignorance: 26 and it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance. 27 And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering. 28 And the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the LORD, to make an atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him. 29 Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them. 30 But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 31 Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him. 32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.”

God Addresses The New Generation

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you,” (verses 1-2) Please take note of this, please, this is very important. Look over in verse 29 of chapter 14, so you got stuck on carcases, so there’s something you might have missed there, “your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward…” Those are the ones that are gonna be lost. So when God is talking to them now in chapter 15, he’s talking to the generation that is 20 years old and younger. Very important for us to see. “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you, and will make an offering by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice in performing a vow, or in a freewill offering, or in your solemn feasts, to make a sweet savour unto the LORD, of the herd, or of the flock:” (verses 2-3) Now look, from verse 3 to verse 16, God rehearses with the younger generation the freewill offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, the fellowship offerings, all of the offerings. And what he says to the next generation, is ‘You keep blood between you and me. All of the promises I have made to the generation before you, they hadn’t taken hold of them,’ and God is willing to look at a younger generation, everybody under 20 years old and he’s willing to say to them ‘Now look, let me rehearse for you the basis of my relationship with your parents, it was in the burnt offering, it was in the sin offering, it was in the fellowship offering. It was not because they ever deserved it, it was because of the blood of an innocent substitute that was shed, and that gave me free course to lead them, to bless them, to work in their lives.’ And he reiterates all of these things with a brand new generation. And then from verse 16 to 21 he goes again and talks to them about firstfruits being offered, he talks to them in verse 29 about the sin offering being offered. And he follows through with a new generation saying to them the same thing he said to the last generation, and the same thing he said to last generation and the same thing he said to the last generation, and to the one before that, listen to me, it’s so important, if you are under 20 years old, you young people that are here, it’s on our heart, those of us here that want to be Joshua’s, want to be Caleb’s, that want to walk with the Lord, it’s imperative for us to communicate clearly to you, that the blood of Jesus Christ is at the center of all of this. We have no rights, we’re no more spiritual than you are, we wrestle with temptation, we struggle, we wrestle with sin, we wrestle with fear, we wrestle with doubt, all of those things. And the center of my relationship, and my wife’s relationship is the blood of Jesus Christ. And when I sit alone with him, I am still filled with wonder that he would fellowship with me, because I know what I am in my heart. I know what a sinful human being I am, I know I am saved by grace, I understand my depravity. And the fact that I can lift my head to heaven and say ‘Father,’ is still overwhelming. And when I get alone with him, that is the overwhelming thing. He doesn’t say to me ‘Now pastor,’ he says ‘son,’ and I disintegrate, the tears flow down my cheek, I am his son. Joshua and Caleb said ‘If he delights in us, he’ll give us the land,’ and I know this in my heart, he delights in me. I’m not being proud, it’s through the blood of Jesus, but he likes me. Not only does he love me, he likes me. This is a revelation, John chapter 16, Jesus said ‘The Father philio’s you,’ he doesn’t just Agape’ you, we all know that’s theological, yes, the love of God. But let this blow your mind, he likes you too. He doesn’t just love you, he likes you, he delights in us, and it’s through the blood of Jesus. The worshipper came, and when the worshipper came he brought a sacrifice, the worshipper was not examined, the sacrifice was examined, the sacrifice had to be spotless. The worshipper, on the basis of a sacrifice was admitting that he was a sinner. The worshipper came with a sacrifice, and that was a confession of the fact that he understood there had to be innocent blood shed, and it was the sacrifice that was examined, never the worshipper. And when we come before the Father, it’s never the worshipper that’s examined, it’s not us, Christ is examined. And because he said on the cross ‘It is finished,’ his work is done on our behalf. God loves us, and you if you’re young, you’re under 20, he doesn’t love you because you go a day without lusting or you go a day without getting mad, or a day without being selfish, he loves you freely because of the completed work of Jesus Christ. And if you learn to see that, and you take hold on that, that’s what he’s going to say to this whole new generation. These are the sacrifices, your parents carcases are going to fall in the wilderness. For you and I, if we have Christian parents, are parents carcases, they fall, not in the wilderness, but they die, it comes, and we’re another generation. And God reiterates for us the same thing that he instructed the Church in in the Book of Acts, and in the Epistles, it hasn’t changed, and he reiterates to every generation what fellowship means, what the sin offering means, what it means to consecrate our lives as a burnt offering, Romans chapter 12, verses 1 to 4.

The Soul That Sins Willfully Will Be Cut Off

And he reiterates this for a whole new generation here, and he tells them in verse 30, “But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.” God says this, your fellowship with me and your approach to me is on the basis of blood, and it’s free and the door is open. But the soul that sins presumptuously, the one that stands among you and thinks ‘Well I’m going to sleep with whoever I want to sleep with,’ not just ‘Oh Lord I blew it, Oh Lord I failed, Oh Lord forgive me,’ but ‘Lord, I don’t care what you think, I’m thumbing my nose at you, I’m going to live by my own morals,’ he says ‘That soul is going to be dealt with, that soul will be dealt with.’ Here is says “cut off from among his people,” “Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” (verse 31) Please notice that, “because he hath despised the word of the LORD,” God’s Word is his wisdom, his Word is his love, God’s Word is his covering, God’s Word is his instruction, God’s Word is our security, God’s Word, it cleanses us, it changes us, we’re born of his Word, it secures us. But he says there are those that despise, “Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” (verse 31) And here’s an example of what he said, “And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.” (verses 32-36) Well what is this, the guy’s playing pick up sticks on the Sabbath and he gets killed? that doesn’t seem fair. Wait a minute, God just went through this whole thing with a generation, said the whole generation is going to pass away, but I want to talk to this new generation, and I want to say to them, ‘keep the blood between us, understand what it means, understand my love to you, understand that you shouldn’t take my Word lightly and despise it.’ And immediately there enters into the picture someone whose doing that very thing, despising the Word of the LORD, and the LORD says ‘Take him out and stone him,’ because it isn’t that gathering sticks on the Sabbath itself is something you would consider a huge sin, but it sows the seeds of rebellion into an entire nation if it isn’t addressed and isn’t dealt with. Sometimes we get the strange idea that the sins we commit are little sins, you know, ‘I would never commit murder, but I’d sure like to slug somebody, that’s only a little part of murder, I don’t want to murder him all the way, I just want to murder them, I want to half-kill ‘em.’ Or ‘No, I don’t agree with abortion, I don’t agree with child pornography, I just want to have a little sexual activity before marriage, I don’t agree with those big-bed things, I just want a little bit of sin.’ Well that’s all part of the Big Picture, gathering sticks on the Sabbath, it’s sowing the seeds of rebellion, a greater harvest will come, it’s sowing to the wind and gathering the whirlwind. Spurgeon said “It’s easier to step on the egg than it is to step on the serpent.” And that’s the picture we have here. God’s willing to start over with an entire new generation, he’s willing to do that today, that’s the exciting thing for me, you know. In my generation, it was the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, the JESUS Movement, it was a tremendous thing that happened, I look at the Church today and I think ‘Lord, do it again, do it with our 16-year-olds, our 17-year-olds, our 18-year-olds, Lord let there be a new fresh move of your Spirit. But let them adhere to your Word, let them understand the power of the blood of Jesus, let them understand that a little leaven, whatever happened to that, a little leaven, it leavens the whole lump Lord, let them be holy set aside, like Caleb, to follow you, and give their entire hearts to you, let them understand the sacrifice you’ve made, the power of your love, how great a thing you’ve done for them. And let them love you because you first loved them, as your Word says.’ Amen? Amen? And we have nothing new to pass to the next generation, we have to reiterate the same thing. You know, John said ‘I don’t give you a new commandment, but an old commandment,’ Peter says ‘I put you in remembrance of these necessary things.’ It isn’t anything new, it’s you and I in our generation taking hold of the truth and not being willing to negotiate or water it down and let go of it, and handing it to another generation that I believe wants the truth. I believe there’s a young generation that’s tired of nonsense, and tired of baloney and tired of phony spirituality, and tired of playing church, that really hunger for God in their hearts. And it is incumbent upon us to communicate to them the truth of the love of Jesus Christ. We bring Christ to men, only God brings men to Christ, but we bring Christ to men is what God’s called us to do, where you work, where you go to school, and we should do it without fear, without compromise. God has placed incredible things in front of us, let’s not turn away from them in unbelief. And the writer of Hebrews would say this, ‘While it is yet today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation, for some when they had heard did provoke, albeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved for forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness, and to whom sware he they should not enter into his rest, but to them who believed not. So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short. For unto you was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them. But the word preached did not profit them, not being mixt with faith in them that heard it. We have believed,’ it says, Hebrews 3 and 4 gives us the description of the whole scene. Let’s have the musicians come. Let’s lift our hearts and our voices, let’s just take inventory, let’s say ‘Lord, give me the grace to move forward, to trust you, to step out of the boat onto the water.’ If you’re here tonight and you don’t know the Lord, I don’t know what all of this meant to you, but if the Holy Spirit got ahold of your heart, and you’re saying ‘You know, I need to get saved, I need to know this God, I don’t want to play church and I don’t want to play religion,’ if you make it up here afterwards we’d love to pray with you, give you a Bible, some literature to read. But let’s stand, let’s pray. Read ahead, as we come to chapter 16, the lesson with Korah is extremely important, and lives on through the Church continually, an important lesson. And then after that, you see the scene where Aaron’s rod buds and God says ‘This Bud’s for you,’ [laughter], you read through there, you’ll see the whole scene, very important…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Numbers 14:1-45 and Numbers 15:1-41, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]