October 27, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Numbers and 1 Corinthians? Here’s today’s reading:
Numbers 14 (NIV)
The People Rebel
1 That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?……Continue Reading
When you read chapters like these it is easy to think how foolish these people were, however, we also need to stop and take a look at our own lives and places when we let fear dictate our choices or get in the way of our faith in God’s power, provision, and presence in our lives.
Sure this seems like obvious, ridiculous to doubt after God has got you out of Egypt, been providing for your needs, and is now promising you this amazing land and yet you are wishing to return to slavery because of your fear. But how different is that than when we choose to remain slaves to the sin in our lives when we know we have the power of God to help us overcome them. We can see this behavior so easily in others but when it comes to looking at ourselves we struggle and make excuses about our particular situation. Kind of like the people’s reaction to Joshua and Caleb wanting to stone them for their zeal and faith rather than accept the fact that the problem was actually their own lack of faith.
Numbers 13 and 14
”Then the Lord said to Moses: “How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? “
They have the ability to live by sight, as God is before them in the cloud and the fire, He has given them manna daily. Theirs is not a blind faith (nor is ours.)
This chapter also serves in my mind as a refutation of the doctrines of Calvinism. God intends to destroy the unbelieving Israelites and start over with Moses, but Moses prays and God relents and allows them to live, albeit with consequences. This goes against the doctrine of determinism and their definition of Sovereignty as: God controlling every action of man and every event.
God sees a different spirit in Caleb. This refutes the doctrine of total inability or total depravity.
But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.“
Numbers 14:11, 24 NKJV
40 And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place which the LORD has promised, for we have sinned!”
41 ¶ And Moses said, “Now why do you transgress the command of the LORD? For this will not succeed.
This false repentance is interesting. They have only “repented” of the consequences of their earlier unbelief and are scrambling to try and fix their circumstances rather than truly repenting, accepting His will to restore their relationship with God.
It was interesting to me that the same arguments used to reject the Lord’s will could have been used to accept it. Why has He brought us this far, why has He done what He is done…well duh, because He knew with His help they would be victorious. How fine the line is between faith and fear. Because courage is not the absence of fear, but moving forward in faith in spite of it. How are we doing with the things that we see are insurmountable? May we recognize how wrong we clearly see them being here (of course God can do it!!), and then how wrong we are when we live in fear as well. And then after they get a tongue lashing from Moses, Joshua, Caleb and God, they want to fix it. But they are still being disobedient. God told them their consequence and they do not humbly receive it. It’s amazing to think that these type of people would then complain to God that He was not with them when He said He wasn’t going to be with them. SO many practical lessons in these chapters in numbers.
Good point Steve that they made a false profession. But now they added to their rebellion by now trying to take the land after God just told them that they sinned and would die in the wilderness. They get defeated now by the Amalekites and the Canaanites because the Lord is not with them. I am not sure when God told Moses that He was going to destroy all Israel that it was a test to Moses or not. For God is an all knowing God and is never surprised. He does however give humans their own free will to choose. He desires us all to come before Him in prayer and plead to Him for others and ourselves. You could come down on this situation from either side for when it comes down to it only God really knows. God bless.
Numbers 14
Numbers 14
Numbers 14