JUL 19

Numbers 13-14
Memorise Numbers 14:9
“Only rebel not ye against the LORD”

We are all familiar with the ‘40 years of wilderness wandering’, but do we really know why the children of Israel had to wander for 40 years? Was it a time arbitrarily set by God? Did it really take that long for them to walk from Egypt to Canaan? Were they really all that lost? If you read Deuteronomy 1:2, you will notice that it takes only 11 days to journey from Horeb (Mt Sinai} to Kadeshbarnea, which is close to the southern border of the Promised Land. Yet instead of 11 days, Israel spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness! Why?

These 40 years of wandering was actually a punishment from God. They could have gone straight into the Promised Land after the spies scouted the land at Kadeshbarnea, but because of their lack of faith that resulted in their rebellion, they were made to wander for those 40 years – a year for every day that the spies scouted out the land. God’s judgment for them was that no one above the age of 20 at the time of the rebellion would be allowed to enter into the Promised Land, for they were without excuse! They were a generation that had personally witnessed God’s power in the 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. Instead of giving glory to God and trusting in Him, they rebelled against him again and again. This final rejection at Kadeshbarnea was the last straw. God said enough was enough, and they were to face the punishment. Thus those 38.5 years (they had already spent 1.5 years travelling from the Red Sea to Kadeshbarnea, most of it camped at Mt Sinai) were in fact years during which they were waiting to die. One by one, Moses, Joshua and Caleb watched every single one of their contemporaries’ “carcases be wasted in the wilderness” (Numbers 14:33). It was indeed a sorrowful time, but yet it is the just punishment of the Holy God.

As we read these chapters, we must understand that rebelling against God is a terribly serious offense! God has done so much to redeem us from the bondage of sin, just as He had redeemed Israel from bondage in Egypt. Yet we continually turn our backs against God and run back into sin – acts which we know cause great grief to God. Are we rejecting God’s Will for us in our lives? Are we still indulging in sins that we know we shouldn’t be? We ought to repent before it is too late, and we end up like Israel.

Thought: When I rebel against God, I am doing the work of the Devil!
Prayer: Lord, help me to have the courage of Joshua and Caleb, to obey even if it means going against the crowd.