Well, you know, we are involved in a series of messages on the life of that great man of God, Moses, and today we come to Numbers chapter 14. Now remember, I've told you that the book of Numbers covers a 39-year period, beginning when the Israelites leave Mount Sinai after receiving the Ten Commandments, and ending when Joshua is about to lead them into the Promised Land.
And I also told you that of all of those 39 years, the book of Numbers records only 13 historical events from all of those years. Now this reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 15 verse 4. He said, for everything that was written in the Old Testament was written for our learning. My point is, if God only chose to record 13 events out of 39 years, then the spiritual lessons that are in those 13 events must be some pretty important spiritual lessons. And so today we're going to take a look and try to find out what the spiritual lesson is in Numbers chapter 14. And when we do, what we're going to discover is that the spiritual lesson here deals with sin and with the consequences of sin and with our tendency as followers of Christ to be dangerously relaxed sometimes about the consequences of sin.
So here we go, a little bit of background. Remember that at God's command, the Israelites set out from Mount Sinai heading towards the Promised Land and they came to a place called Kadesh Barnea. It's right on the southern extremity of what is today modern-day Israel. And here they hesitated in unbelief. Here they became convinced that they could not do what God had promised them they could do with His help, and that is invade and conquer the Promised Land. And so even though Moses begged them and even though Caleb begged them and even though Joshua begged them not to, they still refused to go into the land. Now the Bible tells us that what they did here was not just tragic, it was tragic, but the Bible tells us that also what they did was outright sin.
It was deliberate disobedience to God and the Bible says, Deuteronomy chapter 1 verse 34, when the Lord heard what the Israelites said, that is namely, we're not going in the land, He was angry. All right, that's where we pick up the story. So let's see what happens next. Numbers 14 verse 11, then the Lord said to Moses, how long will these people treat me with contempt and how long will they refuse to believe in me despite all the miraculous signs that I have performed among them? Moses, he says, I will now strike down these people with a plague and I'll destroy them all, Moses, and I will start over and make for you a new nation.
Let me summarize what happens next. What happens next is Moses prays for the Israelites and asks God please not to annihilate them. He reminds God that if God were to wipe them all out in the wilderness, the surrounding nations would assume it was because he wasn't powerful enough to be able to bring them in the promised land, that if God were to wipe them all out in the wilderness, that it would tarnish his reputation in the world. And so verse 20, the Lord said to Moses, I have forgiven them according to your request. You say, wow, this is great. I mean the Israelites dodged the bullet one more time.
Well, not so Kemosabe, no, no, no, no. Look what God says to them after this though. Verse 28, as I live, says the Lord, your corpses, he says to the Israelites, shall fall in the desert. Every one of you who is 20 years or older, not one of you except Joshua and Caleb, will enter the land that I swore to give you. Your children, whom you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.
But as for you, your corpses will fall in the wilderness. For 40 years, one year for each day you spied out the land. You ever wonder why the Israelites wandered 40 years in the wilderness? This is why, they spied out the land 40 days. God said, you're gonna wander a year for each day. For 40 years, you will wander in the desert and suffer for your sin.
I the Lord have spoken it and I will certainly do it. Then the 10 spies who brought back the bad report about the land were struck down with a plague before the Lord of the 12 men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua and Caleb survived. You say, wow, Lon, it is not a good idea to make God angry. Well, you're right.
But you know what? The story doesn't end here. Look, there's more, verse 40. But early the next morning, the Israelites came to Moses and said, we have sinned.
They came to Moses and said, you know Moses, you were right. We were wrong. We admit it. We're here to repent of it. Here we are.
We're ready now to go into the land that God promised us. Now friends, the Israelites were making a huge assumption here, weren't they? You say, I don't know. I don't think I get the assumption they make.
Well, think about it. You see, God had already pronounced the consequence on their sin, hadn't he? He had already told them what the penalty for their disobedience was gonna be, 40 years wandering in the desert, right?
Okay, so here they are. They come to God. They confess their sin. They repent of their sin. And now the Israelites were just assuming. They were just assuming that God would change his mind about those consequences and let them all go in the promised land. You say, well, yeah, okay. I see what you're saying. So where did they get this kind of assumption from?
Why would they possibly assume that? Well, the answer is, friends, because they had seen God do this very thing for them time and time again. Think back now, Exodus 32. Remember, this is where they built the golden calf at the base of Mount Sinai. And what happened there? God said to Moses, I'm gonna destroy the whole people.
I'm gonna wipe them out. Moses prayed for the people of Israel. They repented and what did God do? Exodus 32, 14, then the Lord relented and did not bring on them the disaster he threatened. And then just a few days before Numbers 14, you'll remember in Numbers chapter 12, we talked about it a week or two ago, Miriam and Aaron led a revolt, a mutiny against Moses.
You remember that? And God as a consequence of her sin struck Miriam down with leprosy. But what happened? She repented, Moses prayed for her and God removed the consequences and healed her. Okay, so here in Numbers 14, the Israelites are just assuming that God is gonna follow this very same pattern once again. Namely, number one, they would confess their sin and repent. Number two, Moses would pray for them. And number three, God would lift their punishment and let them go in the promised land.
Now watch what really happens. Deuteronomy 1 verse 42, but the Lord said to Moses, tell them not to go into the land and fight because I will not go with them. Tell them that they will be defeated. Numbers 14, 41, so Moses said to them, why are you still disobeying God? This will not succeed because you turned your back on the Lord. He will not go with you and you will fall by the sword. Verse 44, nevertheless, in their presumption, the Israelites went anyway. And what happened? Verse 45, then the Canaanites came and attacked them and beat them back. I love the way Moses puts it in Deuteronomy 1 verse 44.
He says, and the Canaanites who lived in the land came out against you and they chased you like a swarm of bees. Now there's a picture for you. You know, my middle son Justin lives in Chicago and when he was home a couple years ago, my boy, he loves golf. He loves to play golf. And so we had a friend of ours who invited the two of us to come to this private club that he was a member of and join him in a round of golf.
So we went. Well, on one hole, Justin hit his drive into the woods on the right side of the fairway and he went into the woods looking for his ball. I was out the fairway and all of a sudden, I see Justin come running at full speed out of the woods, running as fast as he can go. And when he got over to me, I noticed he was missing a shoe. And I said, what happened to your shoe? He said, well, I went in there and my ball, there are bees all around my ball and I ran so fast to get out, my shoe came off.
Well, we were playing with a caddy, a 75-year-old gentleman who had been a caddy at this course for over 50 years. And when he heard us talking, he said, oh man, he said, I ain't afraid of no bees. He said, I'll go in there and get your shoe. And so he trotted off fearlessly into the woods. I lie not, it couldn't have been 10 seconds. That guy came flying out the woods with the shoe in his hand and with this swarm of bees hot on his trail, I wish you could have seen this 75-year-old man running down the fairway with the shoe in his hand as fast as those old legs would carry him with this big old black cloud following him down the fairway. I mean, he was running for everything he was worth and they were in hot pursuit of him, friends. Maybe he had to be there, it was hysterical.
At least to me, I have a twisted sense of humor but it was hysterical. You say, Lon, what is the point? What are you talking about up there? The point is that when you run into a swarm of bees, there is only one option, folks. You run for your life.
You head for the hills. And this is exactly what the Bible is trying to tell us happened to the Israelites when they went in the land. They got clobbered, clobbered. The bottom line I want you to get is that in spite of the Israelites confessing their sin, in spite of the Israelites repenting of their sin, in spite of the Israelites accepting full responsibility before God for their sin, God did not lift the consequences of their sin off of them. The consequences that he had pronounced, he didn't take them away. Deuteronomy 1 verse 45, Moses said, so you came back after your defeat and you wept before the Lord. Watch now, but he paid no attention to your weeping and instead he turned a deaf ear to you.
Friends, God decided that this time the Israelites had pushed his patience too far and this time the consequences were going to stick and they were irreversible. Now, that's as far as we want to go in our passage for today because it's time for us to ask our most important question. And are you ready?
Are you ready? Okay, you guys should be awake by this point in the day. So here we go, nice and loud.
One, two, three. So what? Oh, yeah.
Man, that was great. You say, Lord, so what? Say, you know what? I don't really care about what happened to the Israelites and I could even care less about Justin's shoe. What difference does any of this make for me today?
Well, let's see if we can help with that, okay? You know, in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the apostle Paul actually takes 12 verses and looks back on these events in Numbers 14 and has some really important things to say. Look what he says. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 1. For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our forefathers, the Israelites, were all under the cloud. You remember the cloud of God that used to lead them around the wilderness?
Okay. And they all passed through the Red Sea and they all ate the same spiritual food, manna, and they all drank the same spiritual drink, you know, the water from the rock out there in the wilderness, for they all drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them in the wilderness and that rock was Christ. Now watch verse 5. Nevertheless, with most of them, in spite of all of these privileges that God had given them, nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness.
Now friends, I'd say this is an understatement. With most of them, God was not well pleased. He was only well pleased with two of them, Joshua and Caleb. 1,999,998 he wasn't pleased with.
Understatement, understatement, yeah? Now watch verse 11. Now all of this happened, Paul said, to them as an example, and it was written down, look at this, as a warning to us.
Now how is what happened to these people a warning to us? What is God warning us about in Numbers 14? Well friends, what He's warning us about is the consequences of sin. And what He's warning us about is about a presuming on God that God will always remove those consequences even if we confess our sin, even if we repent of our sin, to assume that God will automatically remove those consequences.
God's warning us, you can't do that because I didn't do it for those Israelites. Now let's stop and say, my friends, that so very often in His mercy God does soften the consequences that our sins bring on us. And so often in His mercy God even removes altogether the consequences of the sin that we bring on ourselves. I mean think about it, He lifted the consequences of Abraham's sin after Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister. He lifted the consequences of Peter's sin after Peter denied the Lord three times. He lifted the consequences of Samson's repeated indiscretions. You can read about it in the book of Judges. He lifted the consequences of David's sin after David defected to the Philistines while Saul was chasing him.
He lifted the consequences of Elijah's sin after Elijah ran away from Jezebel. And you know folks, when it comes to you and me today as followers of Christ, how many times have you and I done things that were sinful? How many times have you and I said things that were sinful where because of what we said and because of what we did, I mean the consequences could have been disastrous. The consequences could have been catastrophic in our life. And yet in His incredible mercy God stepped in and delivered us from those consequences.
I mean we were dead to rights and we knew it. And yet in His mercy God stepped in and just broke those consequences up. It's like He coated us with spiritual Teflon so that nothing sticks.
And all of a sudden we came out of a situation where we should have been smelling like a toad and we came out of it smelling like a rose. How many times has God done that for you? Well I can tell you, He's done that for me more times than I could even count. And I'll bet you if you've been a follower of Jesus very long, He's done that for you more times than you can ever count. Friends, praise God. Thank God for His unbelievable mercy to us when we bring on ourselves disaster. Amen? Amen.
Now, that's true. But, and here's the warning my friends, nowhere in the Bible does God obligate Himself to do this for us in every situation. Friends, the Bible is clear sin has consequences. And even if we confess our sin like the Israelites did in Numbers 14, and even if we repent of our sin like the Israelites did in Numbers 14, and even when we come back and try to make things right with God like the Israelites did in Numbers 14, nowhere in the Bible does God promise that He will automatically suspend the consequences of our sin. You say, well, Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Time out. What about 1 John 1-9? If we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us for our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous. What about that verse? Don't you believe that verse? Oh, friends, I totally believe that verse.
But what does the verse say? The verse says, if we confess our sins, yes, God will forgive us. And yes, if we confess our sins, God will repair the breach in our relationship between Him and us that our sin caused. Yes, but that verse does not say that God will automatically lift the consequences of the sin that we committed, nor does any other verse in the Bible ever say that.
Yes, sometimes in His great mercy, God does this for us. But folks, as we just saw in Numbers chapter 14, sometimes God does not do it. Think about Samson. We said, yes, God lifted the consequences so many times for his repeated indiscretions. But when he took up with Delilah, God said, Samson, you know what, son?
You have pushed me one step too far. And God allowed the Philistines to capture him, to chain him to a pole and to gouge both his eyes out. And how about David? We said, yes, God lifted the consequences of him fleeing to the Philistines and taking up with them, yes. But you know, a few years later, when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then got her pregnant and then killed her husband, murdered her husband so he could have her as his wife, God says, you know what, David?
You have pushed my patience one step too far, son. And he sent Nathan the prophet to see David. And here's what Nathan said. Nathan said, because of what you did, Bathsheba's child, the one you impregnated her with, shall surely die. But more than that, David, because God says you despised me and you took Uriah's wife from him, the sword shall never depart from your house.
And it never did. His children killed each other, raped each other, mutinyed against him. Friends, David fasted, David prayed, and yet you know what? God refused to lift those consequences for the rest of his life. Ananias and Sapphira, you remember them, Acts chapter 5, they lied to Peter, they lied to the Holy Spirit. Boom, drop dead right at Peter's feet, right there.
I'd say those consequences were fairly irreversible, wouldn't you? And you remember the Israelites in Jeremiah's day? God said because of their sin, the consequence he declared is that King Nebuchadnezzar was going to come and destroy the whole city of Jerusalem. And here's what he said to Jeremiah.
Check this out. Jeremiah 7 16, As for you Jeremiah, God says, do not pray for this people and do not plead with me on their behalf for I will not hear you. He goes on to say Jeremiah 15 1, even if Moses, God says, and Samuel were to stand before me in prayer for them, my heart will not be turned towards these people. I've declared what the consequences are Jeremiah and they are going to stick. You understand?
Don't even talk to me about it. And finally Moses, dear old Moses, we're going to see in a couple of chapters, Numbers chapter 20, when he struck the rock twice with his staff, you remember that? And God said, Moses, you know what?
Because you sinned and did that, you're not going into the Promised Land. And you know what happened? Moses prayed, Moses wept, Moses asked God and said, come on God, please.
And God said to him, you know what? Stop talking to me about it. We're not discussing this anymore. It's over. You're not going.
Friends, here's the point I want you to take home today with you. As followers of Jesus Christ, when we are tempted to do something wrong, when we're tempted to do something that we know is sin, far too often we ask the wrong question. Far too often the question we ask as we're considering sin is, will the Lord, if I do this, will He forgive me? And the answer is yes. Yes, 1 John 1-9, if we confess this, yes, He will forgive us.
But that is the wrong question. The right question we should be asking is, if I do this, what painful consequences might I be bringing on my life that God may refuse to suspend, that God may refuse to lift? We need to ask, if I do this, will I push the patience of God one step too far, like the Israelites did, like Samson did, like David did, like Moses did, like Ananias and Sapphira did? You say, Lon, what are you trying to do? You trying to scare me? Yes.
Yes, I am. Friends, there are certain things in my life that I don't do because I am scared to death of the consequences that God might send on to my life and refuse to lift if I did it. And let me just tell you in my life, that kind of fear of God is a healthy fear. That kind of fear of God is a wholesome fear. That kind of fear of God is a cleansing fear. And I believe that there are many of us here today in whom the fear of God needs to be resuscitated. There are many of us here today who are actively committing sin and disobedience to God right now in our lives and we know it.
And so far, nothing catastrophic has happened to us. So far, God has mercifully kept the consequences of sin off of us. But my friend, I'm here to warn you, this will not last forever. Eventually, God's patience is going to run out and He is going to let the hammer fall just like He let them fall on the Israelites.
And this means that if you're in this situation, my friend, there is no time to lose. You need to repent. You need to forsake your sin and get out of it now before the bottom drops out on you. Others of us here are flirting with sin.
We're considering it. I mean, maybe it's cheating in school or maybe it's stealing at work or maybe it's lying to our boss or lying to our customers and misleading them. Maybe it's committing adultery or some other sexual sin or maybe it's dabbling in internet pornography or maybe we're considering ending our marriage and walking out on our family or maybe we're considering taking revenge on somebody who hurt us. And I could go on with hundreds of other examples, but we're walking right on the edge and we're thinking about jumping in and we're saying to ourself, Will God forgive me if I do it?
Yes, He will. But friends, listen. You don't know whether that sin that you're considering may be the very one that pushes God past His limit with you, that pushes God's patience one step too far with you. You don't know if that sin you're considering may be the one where God says, Okay, that's too far. And I'm not lifting the consequences of this one.
They're going to stick and they're going to hurt the rest of your life. Folks, I don't know where that point is in my life and you don't know where that point is in your life. And so what I would suggest to all of us is because of that, we need to stay as far away from sin and our life as we possibly can. It is not a smart idea to push God's patience too far. It is not a smart idea to make God angry.
That is not smart. And so, let's summarize. What have we learned today? Well, we've learned that in His wonderful mercy, so often for His children in Christ, God does soften the consequences of the sin that we brought on ourselves. And so often in His wonderful mercy, God even lifts them and dusts our trail and lets us come out smelling like a rose, as I said, when we ought to smell like a toad. But, and here's our warning, nowhere in the Bible does God promise He will automatically do this, which means friends, we need to be so very careful about presuming on God's mercy. We need to be so very careful about trivializing sin and its consequences in our life. We need to be so very careful about pushing God's patience to the limit because folks, when God's patience runs out, as we saw with the Israelites in Numbers 14, the results are ugly and sometimes they're irreversible. So if you're here today and you know that you're committing sin right now in your life, my advice to you is with the help of the Holy Spirit, get out of it.
And if you're here today and you're not, my advice to you is with the help of the Holy Spirit, stay out of it. And this is how Paul concludes his discussion of Numbers 14 in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10. He says, So then, 1 Corinthians 10, 12, let him who thinks he stand take heed lest he fall.
You say, what does that mean? It means that when we presume on God's mercy, when we trivialize sin and its consequences, when we begin to assume that God will always remove the consequences of whatever we do, just because we come back and confess it, friends, there is an artificial confidence that sets in. There is a spiritual arrogance that sets into our life where we begin thinking that we can stand no matter what we do. And Paul says, you better watch out. When you think like that, when you think you stand, you better watch out because that's the very kind of attitude that led the Israelites to fall, that led David to fall, that led Samson to fall, that led Ananias and Sapphira to fall, and thousands of other people to fall. You better watch out. God says, don't go there. God is warning us that we need to fear God and we need to take obedience to God seriously, friends. You say, well, Lon, this is a hard message today. Yeah, it is. But friends, it's a good message today.
And I'll tell you why. Because a healthy, wholesome, cleansing fear of God operating in our life is a good thing. It's a healthy thing. It keeps us in the safety zone and away from the edge where a simple step takes us over and into trouble. And if you'll adopt the perspective that I mentioned a little while earlier, that there are certain things in your life that you don't do because you are scared to death what God might do to you and the consequences He might lay on you that He refuses to remove. Folks, that kind of perspective keeps us healthy and safe as we walk through life. God loves us, friends. He doesn't want to see consequences set into our life which is why He has warned us.
And you know what? I challenge you to take His warning seriously now. I have nothing to do with how seriously you take His warning.
That's up to you. I'm only responsible for my life. But may God help you and may God help me and may God help all of us to take God seriously. Friends, we are not dealing with Santa Claus here. We are not dealing with some kindly old man in heaven with a beard who says to everybody, Oh, it's okay.
This is not who we're dealing with. We are dealing with the awesomely holy God of the universe. And yes, He is a God of mercy. And yes, He is a God of forgiveness. And yes, He is a God of love and patience.
Yes. But if we don't balance that out with the fact that He is an awesomely holy God who needs to be feared, then you know what? We're going to end up in a big peck of trouble. So may God help us have a balanced view of God. Because don't forget, the book of Hebrews says, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God.
Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today about, well, it was a hard message, Lord. And yet, it was a good message because we need to be brought up short sometimes. We hear so much on the radio and from televangelists about the love of God, the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the patience of God, all of which is true. But we hear it without balance.
We hear it without the holiness of God and the justice of God. And so Lord Jesus, I pray You would help us to walk with You in balance remembering who You really are and that there is a limit to Your patience. And that if we push You to that point, if You didn't spare men like David, if You didn't spare people like Moses, dear God, Lord Jesus, help us to be very careful we don't go there. And I want to pray finally for people here today who need to make some changes in their life.
They need some course correction. I pray, Lord Jesus, that You would give them the strength and the courage that they need by Your Spirit to face those areas of their life and make those course corrections and bring themselves back into the safety zone and away from the edge. Lord, use Your message today to bless our lives and to lead us into a healthy and wholesome reverence and fear for You. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.
