Numbers 14:11-45 INTERVENTION --- INTERCESSION When the congregation of the children of Israel became violent and were reaching for stones to kill Caleb and Joshua, Moses and Aaron; the visible presence of God was made known. Evidence of the presence of God is a welcome sight for the people of God when we are obedient to Him. It indicates fellowship with Him and the assurance that the covenant formed with Him is sure and lasting. However, when the people of God are rebellious and acting in the energy of the flesh, evidence of the presence of God strikes fear into the soul. Instead of the enjoyment of covenant blessings, there comes the reality of the covenant curses. The glory of the Lord does not only appear when there are causes for joy, but also when His people sin against Him.
God was righteously angry with His people for rejecting Him by not following His revealed will. Now they not only were forgetting His promises, but were rejecting Him personally and were looking for a "captain" to take them back into bondage in Egypt. After all he had done for them in spite of the ten times they had failed to trust and obey Him, they now repudiated Him and His authority. At the Red Sea, when they complained at Marah, in the wilderness of Sin, when they gathered manna to hoard it, when the collected manna on the Sabbath, complaining over the lack of water, making a gold calf, complaining about hardship at Taberah, complaining because of the lack of Egyptian food and now refusing to go into the promised land - these ten times of failing to fulfill their part of the covenant was too much for God to overlook. It is possible for the people of God to think God is obligated to meet our expectations and demands, without us fulfilling our responsibilities that are essential in a covenant. Some people think religious ceremony is all that is involved in our relationship with God. When difficulties arise in life, their supposed "faith in God" evaporates and they turn on those who trust God in spite of the hardships and challenges they face. Faith works in trials, not the times when everything is easy. "The just shall live by faith."
God was prepared to fulfill His promises to Abraham through the seed of Moses. The threat of extinction on the spot of all of those rebellious people was real. What an act of true meekness was the intercession of Moses on behalf of the people of God! The nations around would have quickly known about the disaster if they were destroyed. The reputation of God Himself was well known by this time throughout the whole area, and would have been diminished to something like human action. Moses wanted God's glory and the good of the people of God - not a nation for himself, and the Lord responded to Moses' faith. No matter what others may say or do, we must continue to be faithful to God and beseech Him to continue to show His power and greatness through whatever means He chooses. When a person is willing to live for God and be an intercessor for others, he has gone up to higher ground. It is there we can see things more clearly and see beyond the apparent failures of the moment. It is on that higher ground we have fellowship with God and we are able to glorify Him personally.
Moses knew God's greatness, glory and grace the same as he knew other attributes of God that are displayed such as justice, holiness and righteousness. He knew enough of the divine nature of God that he could make an appeal on behalf of the rebellious people. God must punish the guilty or He is unjust. The consequences of sin must be faced and sin must be dealt with. The longsuffering of God and the essence of God's love allows sinful people to live, but there are consequences that cannot be avoided. The words, "I have pardoned" are a wonderful testimony of God's grace, but God's government is not ignored by His grace.
Judgment was going to be carried out because God "can by no means clear the guilty." So those who rejected God's guidance and promises had to turn back and die - the result of unbelief, murmuring and hardness of heart. Yet because of His grace, the next generation would claim the promises the previous faithless generation rejected. The nation survived but instead of going up and getting what could have been theirs, they died because they listened to explanations instead of obeying God's word. That principle still holds true. If we take hold by faith on what God has promised, we will enjoy those blessings. If we do not because of listening to the "learn'ed words" of some man, what could have been ours will pass to others. In the midst of all of this unbelief and violence, Caleb and Joshua stood firm and "followed Me (God) fully." In their strength at mid-life they had to wait because of the failure of others. When they were old, that strength had not abated. There are times when we have to stand against the temptations of the world, the deception of the flesh, and the "wiles of the devil." The devil will seek to stop God's people from claiming all we have in Christ.
To have not only witnessed, but experienced the miracles of God's grace and power, and still have responded the way they did to the evil report of the ten men, reveals the fact that the Israelites never trusted the Lord consistently. We may have had demonstrations of God's mercy, grace and power on our behalf, but without faith it is impossible to please Him. True faith doesn't pick and choose when it is going to be exercised. To scorn what God has provided is a fateful act that will lead to a fateful sentence. Some of God's own people "for this cause are weak and sickly, and many sleep." The spirit of unbelief is like a plague that spreads and affects many. Faith when it claims promises and acts upon them, is strengthened and increased. God plants faith in us and the Word of God builds and strengthens that faith.
The death of the spies led to a second act of disobedience on the part of the Israelites. They had learned nothing from their failure to obey, so again in stubbornness and arrogance they took matters again into their own hands. And again, they failed when they tried to go up into the land of promise by self-will. They didn't believe Moses when he told them God had forsaken them and left them to their own ways until they died. The Lord was not with them so the enemies defeated them and chased them away. How grievous it is to the Lord when the people of God act as if He is not the guiding Person in our lives. How sad to see disobedient people trying to do God's work in the energy of the flesh and failing to produce what God had intended for them. How bad is the loss when a whole generation of those who professed to belong to the Lord, turn back and go into the wilderness for the rest of their lives. May the new believers among us learn the lessons from the failures of the older people, and more ahead in faith to claim what God has promised.