Rebellion and Its Results, Part 3

Numbers chapter 14 is where we are this morning. Rebellion and its res. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 15, verse number 23 That rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

Rebellion is satanic at its root. Satan was the first to rebel, and there have been many who have followed in his footsteps ever since.

Rebellion happens because we despise the one in authority. The W of God. That 's why people rebel. So when you despise the Word of God, in essence, you disbelieve the Word of God. In Numbers 13 and 14, you have the fathers who were not faithful to God. And because they were not faithful to God, they were full. Of fear. And that's all because they truly despised the word of the Lord. And that led to their disobedience, which ultimately will lead to their destruction. In Numbers 13 and 14, we have the beginning.

Listen, we have the beginning of the longest funeral procession in the history of man. It lasts for 40 years. That's a long funeral procession. And we're going to look at how it all begins this morning.

We looked at the responsibility of the spies to go in and search out the land. And then we looked at their report when they came back and looked at the majority report versus the minority report. And then we looked at their rebellion based on that report. And then we looked at Moses, how he would intercede for his people and bring reconciliation between God and the nation of Israel. Today, we look at the retribution that Israel faces.

And then the results of that retribution. Numbers 14, verse number 20. This is where we left off. So the Lord said, I have pardoned them according to your word, but indeed as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. Surely all the men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put me to the test these ten times, and have not listened to my voice, shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers. nor shall any of those who spurn me see it.

But my servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered And his descendants shall take possession of it. Now the Amalekites and the Canaan live in the valleys. Turn to morrow and set out to the wilderness by way of the Red Sea. The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, How long? Shall I bear with this evil congregation, who are grumbling against me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against me.

Say to them, As I live, says the LORD, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will surely do to you. Your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men according to your complete number. from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me. Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephun. And Joshua the son of Nun. Your children, however, whom you said would become prey, I will bring them in, and they shall know the land which you have rejected.

But as for you, your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, and your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they shall suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness. According to the number of days which you spite out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years. And you shall know my opposition. I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me.

In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they shall die. As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land Even those men who brought out the very bad report of the land died by a plague before the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephun remained alive. Out of those men who went to spy out the land. We're looking at the retribution. Moses prayed, ask God not to kill them.

He asked God not to disinherit them. He asked God not to start anew. Because God said, I'm just going to wipe them out. It will begin afresh. With a whole new crop of people through the line of Moses. And Moses prayed, No, Lord. And he based that prayer on the glory of God and on the word of God. And yet there are consequences for sin, and sin must be punished. And so we have the retribution, God's way of helping teach the nation of Israel, that becomes the def moment for Israel. Numbers 13 and 14 is that defining moment.

You ever been in your life where there's a time where you have to obey the Lord or disobey the Lord? You have to be faithful to God or fearful of man. It's the defining moment of your life. And Numbers 13 and 14 is the defining moment in the life of Israel. And once you make your decision, your path is set. They made the bad decision, they made the wrong decision. And thus, the right of Hebrews. Would refer to this incident. The psalmist in Psalm 95 would refer to this incident and say, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in As in the wilderness, and God would speak about the nation's rebellion against them.

This was a defining moment for the nation of Israel. And all of us need to recognize that when we go through life, there are different moments that mark our destiny. Based on the decision that we make, either for God or against God. And this was their defining moment. And they rebelled against the authority of God, they despised the word of the Lord. They began to moan and grumble because of the bad report. And God said, You know what? Let's just get rid of them. Moses would beg his God not to do that.

So God says, I've pardoned them. Verse number 20, I will forgive them. And yet, let me look with you, number one, at the cause of retribution.

But indeed, as I live, the Lord says, verse 21, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. Everybody will know who I am. Based on what I do today, everybody's going to know. And then he says, Surely all the men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, Yet I put me to the test these ten times and have not listened to my voice. Here's the bottom line: they refuse to listen to God, they refuse to heed the voice of God. They're just not listening.

They despise my word, and therefore they disobey everything I say. If you get one thing out of Numbers 13 and 14, get this. Make sure you listen to God. God wants you to hear him, and he wants you to follow him. We're not very good at listening, are we? We kind of tune God out most of the time. And the Bible says over in the book of Psalms, Psalm 81, verse number 8: Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you, O Israel, if you would listen to me.

Let there be no strange God among you, nor shall you worship any foreign God. I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways, if they would just listen to my voice, if they would just heed my voice, if they would just obey what I have said.

But they would not. And then over in Isaiah chapter 48, verse number 17: Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God. Who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go? If only you had paid attention to my commandments, then your well-being would have been like a river. And your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your descendants would have been like the sand, and your offspring like its grains. Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from my presence.

If only you had listened to my commandments. If only you'd obeyed my voice. If only you would heed my call. You know, the Christian life is basically summed up in one word, and that's obedience. That's it. Hear what God says and obey.

And Israel refused to obey. They will not listen to my voice. They will not do what I have told them to do. They haven't listened, and they have spurned me. God says.

They despise me. They disbelieve in what I have told them. And God says, All these men have seen my glory.

All these men have seen my signs performed in Egypt and in the wilderness. There is no excuse for them to despise my words. They refused to listen.

And that was the cause. Of the retribution, God says they won't listen to me. They're forgiven. I'm not going to disinherit them. But because they will not listen, there will be a price to pay. Let me tell something, folks.

When you don't listen to God, there's always a price to pay. You might not pay today, you might not pay tomorrow, but in the end, you'll pay. These ten times. Israel didn't pay at first.

God kept forgiving them, God kept providing for them, but finally, God's long su was over. He says, you know what? They will not listen no matter what I do. And then he says, because of that, they're going to die in the wilderness. Look at the crowd for retribution.

That's point number two. The cause is that they won't listen. The crowd is all those 20 years and over. If you go back to Numbers chapter 1, you realize that there are 60, men. That's not counting their wives. If half of them were married, that's over a million people. All those 20 years and older, and they only counted the men back then, but all those 20 years and older are going to die in the wilderness. Now, can you imagine? You're a father, and you believe the majority report. And so you go and you sit down at dinner and you tell your children, I got some news for you.

I'm going to die. And your children say, What do you mean you going to die, Dad? I'm going to die. Sometime over the next 40 years, I'm going to die. And one of your children says, Well, why, Daddy? Well, because I refuse to believe what God said. Your child says, Well, why'd you do that, Daddy? Well, I don't know. I just didn't believe. But why, Daddy? Why didn't you believe? Why wouldn't you respond to the voice of God? Why didn't you listen to God? Dad says. I don't know. And they'd have to explain to their children that we're going to die.

But you'll get to go into the promised land. But, Dad, we want to go in with you. It's not going to happen. God says we're not going to make it.

We're not going to go, but you'll go. And it's such an indictment when the Lord says, Your sons, verse number 33, shall be shepherds for 40 years in the wilderness, and they. Shall suffer for your un. Parents, mark it down. Are your children suffering because of your unfaithfulness? They're going to suffer because of your unfaithfulness, because of your unwillingness to believe in me, because you despise my word. Because you disobeyed my word, because you rebelled against my authority, your children will suffer for the next 40 years in the wilderness, and they'll watch you d.

He says, Your carcasses will fall. Every day you spite out the land, there will be one year you will march in circles. In the dry, desert, barren land in the wilderness, because you refuse to believe in my voice. Except Joshua and Can. They're over 20. They're going to get to go in. That's the good part of the story, isn't it? Why? Well, he tells us. He says, my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and followed me fully. There was something different about Caleb. His spirit was not fearful, it was faithful.

And even though everybody wanted to stone him and killed him, he stood strong for me. He followed me fu. Man, Caleb's going to go in. Joshua 's going to go in because they were committed to me. Now, they would have to wait because sin affects everybody, but God promised they would live and go in because they were committed. To fully following the Lord. I wonder if people would say that about you. See, Caleb followed the Lord fully. It wasn't a partial following. It wasn't a half-hearted commitment.

It was an intense desire to honor God. To serve him with all of his heart, no compromise. That's the way we need to be, right? And so he was excluded. So was Joshua. Because they were committed to following their God. You see, there is reward for obedience. Can't you see it in the story? All you got to do is read the story. We've read it so often, it just goes in one ear, not the other. Oh, the five, ten died, two went to the promised land, they wandered around for 40 years and died in the wilderness.

But the rewards of obedience are great, and the retribution for disobedience. Is even greater. See? So, what is the character of that retribution? Let me look at it with you for a second.

It begins with a reciprocation. Let's know what God says. Verse number 28. As I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will surely do to you. Remember what they said back in verse number 2 of chapter 14? Oh, that we had died in the wilderness. That was their cry. So God says, Here's my retribution on you.

I'm going to give you what you asked for. You wished to die in the wilderness? Guess what? You will die in the wilderness. That's part of the retribution. God reciprocates. God says, Okay, if that's what you want, that's what I will give you.

As you have spoken, so I will surely do to you. And then I want you to notice this. And that is how they were re. The Bible says in verse number 25.

Now, the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys. Turn tomorrow. Need to circle that word tomorrow. We'll get back to it in a second.

Turn tomorrow and set out to the wilderness by way of the R Sea. In other words, you're going to go the opposite way of the promised land. You 're going to backtrack. You know what? There are many people who sit in churches whose lives have been rerouted because they have disobeyed the voice of the Lord. God had maybe called them to be involved in the ministry and they refused. And God rerouted them a different direction, and they've been pain since. God had called them to a life of celibacy, and they didn't want to do that, so they found someone and married them, and had been miserable ever since.

Or maybe God had told you not to marry someone and you did anyway, and you're miserable. And they've been rerouted because of their disobedience to listening to the voice of God. Many people find themselves in that category. It's so unfortunate. But it's just because they refuse to listen.

They despise the word of the Lord. They know what God's word says, and they say, you know what? I'm not going to do that. I'm going do what I want to do. I don't have to listen to God. I'm going to follow my own natural instincts. I'm going to follow what society says. And God reroutes them because they refuse to listen.

Listen to this. He says this in verse number 29. Your corpses shall fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me. That speaks of their ruin. They're going to be destroyed. You see, it's always to your ruin to disobey God. It's never to your reward. You'll always be ruined. And God says you're going to die.

The wages of sin is always death. Isn that not true? There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are not life, but death. James said it this way in James chapter 1. He said this in verse number 14. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then, when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. There's nothing positive about sin. It's always negative. It always comes to the ruin of the individual.

And notice this: their ruin is an extended ruin. They end up living a long, boring, dry des life. There was nothing exciting about the wilderness. There is nothing joyous about the heat. Not knowing which day they were going to die. You see, that's what happens when sin reigns paramount in our lives, it leads to ruin. That's why you need to understand that rebellion never brings reward. Rebellion always brings ruin to the life of the one who rebels and always does. But notice this, verse number 36, that all those ten men that gave the majority report Text says, and made all the congregation grumble against him.

Remember, they were leaders of their tribes. These were leaders. And these leaders brought a reproach upon the people of God because they led them the wrong way. The Bible says they died.

God killed him. They killed him for two reasons. One, to remind the people that they were going to die too, sometime over the next 40 years. As well as to commend Joshua and Caleb, they live, see? They didn't die. They didn't sin against the Lord. They didn't disobey the word of the Lord. They followed the Lord fully. Therefore, God lets them live. God rewards them by giving them the land. But to those men who brought back the bad report and led the people the wrong way, they died. And it would be a testimony to everyone else who followed them that they too would die 20 years and older.

I want you to notice something. Verse number 39. And when Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned greatly. They were sad because they couldn't receive the promise. They were sad because the ten spies died. They were sad because they were told they were going to die. They weren't said because they rebelled against God. How do we know that? Well, that comes our last point: the results. Listen to what it says. In the morning, however, remember what God says?

God says, Now, tomorrow you're going to turn and you're going to be rerouted. You're going back. That's what's going to happen tomorrow. Now, tomorrow comes, and it says, And in the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill, country, saying, Here we are. We have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised. Wait a minute. It's too late. Here we are. We know we've sinned. You know, God's a God of grace, He's a God of forgiveness. And he'll feast, forgive us, pardon us.

He'll let us in. He's such a good God. It's too late. It's too l. Let's know what happens. But Moses said, Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the Lord when it will not succeed? You see, God said, Tomorrow this is what you're doing. See, they were still in the realm of disobedience. They still lived in the realm of rebellion. They were stubborn. They were stiff-necked. They were going to do God's will. In their time, we're ready to obey now.

Let's take it. And Moses said, You're transgressing once again the commandment of the Lord. What part of dis don't you understand? And then he says this: Do not go up, lest you be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. Well, wait a minute. Didn't God give them that land? Wasn't that the promised land? Yes, it is. And earlier, God says, Go up, take the land.

It's your land. I will be with you. Now God says, I'm not going with you. Folks, let me tell you something, God doesn't go with you, you die.

You can't make it. That's why Jesus said in John 15, 5, without me, you can do nothing. You can't be a father, you can't be a mother, you can't be a parent, you can't be a child that obeys her parents, you can't be a boss, you can't be an Employer, you can't be an employee, you can't do anything without God directing your life. Now, you might think you can. You might rely on your own initiative. You might rely on your own education. You might think that you're gifted enough to do it, but you can't because Jesus said, without me, you can't do anything.

And this is a perfect example. We are ready to go. Here we are. We are the people of God. This is our land. God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, this is ours. God made the promise to us, it's ours. Same reason Israel doesn't have their land today. It's occupied by the Palestinians. They're fighting for it all the time. It's our land. Let's go take it. Give it to it. It's ours. Wait a minute. You have disobeyed the voice of the Lord. And when you disobey the voice of the Lord, it's never pretty.

Never pretty. So Moses says, For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned back from following the Lord, and the Lord will not be with you. Moses says, As sure as I'm standing here today, if you go up against the Canaanites and the Amalekites, you will fall by the sword. Verse 44. But but they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country. Neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses left the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaan who lived in that hill country came down and struck them and beat them down as far as Horm.

Sin always separates you from God. Moses didn't go with them. The Ark of the Covenant was representative of the presence of God. Didn't go with them. They went in alone. What are the results of rebellion? More rebellion. More rebellion. Isn't that sad? They are so hard-hearted. They were going to do God's way, God's word in their own time. God wasn going to tell them what to do. And then it looked good. Well, we'll go up now.

We'll do it now. You see, their rebellion led to remorse. It did not lead to repentance. And remorse always le to more ruin. Repentance leads to a regenerated life. And these people didn't repent. And they would die in the wilderness because of their heart hearts. And that's why the Bible says over in Proverbs chapter 1, Because I called you and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention.

You neglected all my counsel and you did not want my reproof. You didn't want to listen to me. I will laugh, God says.

At your calamity, I will mock when your fear comes. When your fear comes like a storm, and your calamity comes on like a whirlwind, when distresses and anguish come on you, then you will call upon me, but I will not answer. You will seek me diligently, but you shall not find me. Why? Because you hated knowledge. You didn't want to know me. You did not choose the fear of the Lord. You would not accept my counsel. You would not listen to my voice. You spurned all my reproof. So you shall eat of the fruit of your own way, and you will be satiated with your own devices.

He says, You will get exactly what you asked for because you refused to listen. Now, I know this isn't really a really warm, fuzzy sermon today. It's a hard one, but it's a lesson we all need to understand. Folks, we need to start listening to God. We need to stop rebelling against the voice of God. And I don't know where you're at today, and I don't know what God's telling you, but if you're here today and God is calling you to a point of repentance, to a point of salvation, and you keep refusing Him, God will one day say, You know what?

No more. Today, if you hear His voice. Do not harden your hearts as in the day of provocation in the wilderness. That's what the writer of Hebrews said, Hebrews chapter 3. He will state it again in Hebrews chapter 4. Today, if you hear his voice, what is God calling you to do today? Respond, listen, obey. It's not that difficult. It's not. Joshua did it. Caleb did it. It can be done. Obey the voice of God. Listen to what He says. Experience the rewards of obedience instead of experience. The ruin of disobedience.

Fear the Lord. Keep his commandments. And Proverbs 13:1 says, You shall be reward. Let 's pray.