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Numbers 14:1-38; Intercession, Forgiveness, Consequences
2026 03/15 Numbers 14:1-38; Intercession, Forgiveness, Consequences; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20260315_numbers-14_1-38.mp3
The Lord brought his people out of oppressive slavery, out of Egypt, through the sea, through the wilderness to the mountain where he revealed himself to them, forgave their rebellion, entered into a covenant relationship with them. He came to pitch his tent and dwell in the middle of their camp, organized them for war, to march on the promised land. He led them through the wilderness to the border of the land, poised to enter in. They sent spies to seek out the best routes, to understand the occupants of the land, and to bring back evidence of the fruitfulness of the promised land.
Twelve spies traveled the land, visited the place of the patriarchs, where God made promises to Abraham, where Abraham bought a plot of land, a foothold in the land of promise, where Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, Leah and Jacob were buried.
The report the ten brought back was that the land was indeed fruitful with flocks and produce, flowing with milk and honey. But there were fearsome occupants, even giants in the land; this report ignited fear in the people.
Numbers 13:30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The Choice
The people have a choice. The same choice we all have. Believe God, trust what he says, take hold of his promises; or listen to other voices, distrust God, his character, what he has said. This was the choice of Adam and Eve in the garden; take God at his word and listen to him; or entertain other voices that questioned his goodness, doubted his truthfulness, undermined his authority. This is the most important choice we have to make, and this choice has clearly communicated consequences. As Jesus summarized it,
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
We have the advantage of looking back on those who have gone before, we have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and avoid them, or follow in their footsteps and inherit the same kinds of consequences. What voice will you listen to?
The People’s Rebellion
Numbers 14:1 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Unimaginable! Unbelievable! Unthinkable! God had freed them from slavery, carried them, protected them, provided for them, and made precious and very great promises to them, but because of their present circumstances, because of their fears, they would rather have died slaves in Egypt. They would rather have died in the wilderness. The excuse they use is concern for their wives and children, but is this really the kind of example these men want to set for their families? Do they really want them to follow in their footsteps?
We are amazed at their unbelief, but how often do we do the same? In Jesus we have been set free, free from the power and consequences of our sins. But do we reminisce about the good old days of slavery to sin? Jesus sets us free from bondage to lusts, addictions, pride, greed, holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness. How often do we willfully go back to wallow in our own filth?
Let’s choose another leader who will take us back to slavery, back to death. Have they forgotten Miriam’s challenge to Moses’ authority in chapter 12, and God’s unmistakable affirmation of Moses as the one leader the Lord had established? That cost them a seven day delay waiting for Miriam to be cleansed and brought back into the camp.
They know Moses is following God’s direction, so he won’t take them back to slavery. In their rejection of Moses’ leadership, they are really rejecting God as their leader and admitting that they are going opposite to what God has commanded.
Godly Leaders Care for the Flock
Numbers 14:5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. 6 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.”
These leaders genuinely care for the people. They are not offended; they don’t take it personally. They fall on their faces, they tear their clothes; signs of broken-hearted humility. They understand that the people are operating out of fear and rebelling against the Lord. They understand that there are severe consequences for this kind of rebellion, and they want to do anything they can to prevent the people from going in that direction. In chapter 11, when the people complained, the fire of YHWH burned among them. When they craved other food, the Lord struck down those with the craving with a very great plague, and they buried them there. But this is more than complaint; they are rebelling, rejecting God as leader, rejecting his plan, his purposes, his promises. They are rejecting him and choosing to go back to slavery without him.
God’s Glory Revealed in Judgment
Their response to this kind of leadership?
Numbers 14:10 Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. 11 And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
They want to execute their humble, godly leaders, but God rescues them by his glorious presence. God’s glory is revealed in his just judgment of sin. God does take it personally, because sin is personal against God. They are despising him. They are refusing to believe in him. Everything God says here is right and just. They deserve to be disinherited. They deserve to be destroyed. God threatens to wipe them out and start over with Moses. This is not the first time God has made this threat. If we look back to Exodus 32; when the people turn to false gods and worship the golden calf,
Exodus 32:9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Moses Intercedes
There we see Moses interceding for the people, arguing with God about his threats, ‘and the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people’ (Ex.32:14).
Here in Numbers 14,
Numbers 14:13 But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people. For you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, 16 ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ 17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, 18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ 19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
Moses, like a good lawyer, argues the case of the people before God. He doesn’t attempt to justify the actions of the people; they are unjustifiable. Instead he argues for the reputation of God. God is powerful, and has committed to be with this people. If he kills them all now, his name will be slandered among the nations; they will believe that he is not as powerful as they thought he was.
Understand, Moses is not puffing God’s ego; people thinking less of God, disbelieving in God does not injure God’s pride; it injures the people that refuse to believe in him. And God has a heart not only for his own people, but for the nations. God has already commanded his people to welcome the foreigner who desires to follow God and belong to his people. If they come to view him as unable to save, they are less likely to follow him, to turn and trust in him.
Moses also argues from God’s own revealed character. He prays scripture back to God. God revealed himself to Moses in Exodus 34;
Exodus 34:6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Here Moses calls on God to put his great power on display by keeping the promise of his character; this is a perfect opportunity to show that you are slow to anger, that you abound in steadfast love, that you indeed are able to forgive iniquity and transgression, and that you all the while retain your integrity and justice, by no means clearing the guilty. Moses calls on the immensity of God’s steadfast love, his covenant faithfulness, and his history of forgiving this persistently wayward people.
These are powerful lessons for prayer; a deep concern for God’s people, a passion for God’s glory, praying his words back to him, calling on him to be who he has revealed himself to be.
The Glory of God in Forgiveness and Justice
YHWH heard and answered this prayer.
Numbers 14:20 Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. 21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. 25 Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
‘I have pardoned, according to your word’. God grants forgiveness, but forgiveness does not imply escape from all of sin’s consequences. God threatened to wipe them out and start over. That’s what they deserved, but he does not give them all that they deserve.
Moses argued for God to defend the honor of his name among the nations; God answers ‘ all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD’. I will fill the earth with the weightiness of my character. God’s character is revealed both in justice and in mercy, in wrath and in forgiveness. He will not wipe all his rebellious people out immediately as they deserve, but those who saw his glory, saw his miraculous works, who persistently challenged God, disobeyed God, despised God, will not enter the land. Because God’s character is weighty, because he is just and will not let the guilty go unpunished, there will be consequences for their blatant rebellion.
Giving Them What They Desired
Numbers 14:26 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27 “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. 28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35 I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
Again, God gives them what they asked for. They would rather die in the wilderness than enter the land; so be it. They rejected the land, so God will not force them to enter in. Their children will suffer for the unbelief of their parents. Sin has consequences not only on the one who sins, but on everyone around them. The children are not being punished for the sins of their fathers, but the sins of the fathers affect the lives of their children. The ones they claimed to be protecting will now suffer as a consequence of their rebellion.
But even in God’s just judgment, there is promise and hope. Their children will enter in. God says ‘I will bring them in, and they will know the land.’
Leaders Held Accountable
Numbers 14:36 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— 37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land— died by plague before the LORD. 38 Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.
The whole nation deserved to die; only that generation would fall in the wilderness. The whole nation deserved to die immediately; only the ten leaders who influenced the people to rebel against God die immediately.
Written for Our Instruction
1 Corinthians 10 tells us ‘these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction’. Hebrews 3 warns us;
Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
***
Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
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By Rodney Zedicher2026 03/15 Numbers 14:1-38; Intercession, Forgiveness, Consequences; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20260315_numbers-14_1-38.mp3
The Lord brought his people out of oppressive slavery, out of Egypt, through the sea, through the wilderness to the mountain where he revealed himself to them, forgave their rebellion, entered into a covenant relationship with them. He came to pitch his tent and dwell in the middle of their camp, organized them for war, to march on the promised land. He led them through the wilderness to the border of the land, poised to enter in. They sent spies to seek out the best routes, to understand the occupants of the land, and to bring back evidence of the fruitfulness of the promised land.
Twelve spies traveled the land, visited the place of the patriarchs, where God made promises to Abraham, where Abraham bought a plot of land, a foothold in the land of promise, where Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, Leah and Jacob were buried.
The report the ten brought back was that the land was indeed fruitful with flocks and produce, flowing with milk and honey. But there were fearsome occupants, even giants in the land; this report ignited fear in the people.
Numbers 13:30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The Choice
The people have a choice. The same choice we all have. Believe God, trust what he says, take hold of his promises; or listen to other voices, distrust God, his character, what he has said. This was the choice of Adam and Eve in the garden; take God at his word and listen to him; or entertain other voices that questioned his goodness, doubted his truthfulness, undermined his authority. This is the most important choice we have to make, and this choice has clearly communicated consequences. As Jesus summarized it,
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
We have the advantage of looking back on those who have gone before, we have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and avoid them, or follow in their footsteps and inherit the same kinds of consequences. What voice will you listen to?
The People’s Rebellion
Numbers 14:1 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Unimaginable! Unbelievable! Unthinkable! God had freed them from slavery, carried them, protected them, provided for them, and made precious and very great promises to them, but because of their present circumstances, because of their fears, they would rather have died slaves in Egypt. They would rather have died in the wilderness. The excuse they use is concern for their wives and children, but is this really the kind of example these men want to set for their families? Do they really want them to follow in their footsteps?
We are amazed at their unbelief, but how often do we do the same? In Jesus we have been set free, free from the power and consequences of our sins. But do we reminisce about the good old days of slavery to sin? Jesus sets us free from bondage to lusts, addictions, pride, greed, holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness. How often do we willfully go back to wallow in our own filth?
Let’s choose another leader who will take us back to slavery, back to death. Have they forgotten Miriam’s challenge to Moses’ authority in chapter 12, and God’s unmistakable affirmation of Moses as the one leader the Lord had established? That cost them a seven day delay waiting for Miriam to be cleansed and brought back into the camp.
They know Moses is following God’s direction, so he won’t take them back to slavery. In their rejection of Moses’ leadership, they are really rejecting God as their leader and admitting that they are going opposite to what God has commanded.
Godly Leaders Care for the Flock
Numbers 14:5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. 6 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.”
These leaders genuinely care for the people. They are not offended; they don’t take it personally. They fall on their faces, they tear their clothes; signs of broken-hearted humility. They understand that the people are operating out of fear and rebelling against the Lord. They understand that there are severe consequences for this kind of rebellion, and they want to do anything they can to prevent the people from going in that direction. In chapter 11, when the people complained, the fire of YHWH burned among them. When they craved other food, the Lord struck down those with the craving with a very great plague, and they buried them there. But this is more than complaint; they are rebelling, rejecting God as leader, rejecting his plan, his purposes, his promises. They are rejecting him and choosing to go back to slavery without him.
God’s Glory Revealed in Judgment
Their response to this kind of leadership?
Numbers 14:10 Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. 11 And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
They want to execute their humble, godly leaders, but God rescues them by his glorious presence. God’s glory is revealed in his just judgment of sin. God does take it personally, because sin is personal against God. They are despising him. They are refusing to believe in him. Everything God says here is right and just. They deserve to be disinherited. They deserve to be destroyed. God threatens to wipe them out and start over with Moses. This is not the first time God has made this threat. If we look back to Exodus 32; when the people turn to false gods and worship the golden calf,
Exodus 32:9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Moses Intercedes
There we see Moses interceding for the people, arguing with God about his threats, ‘and the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people’ (Ex.32:14).
Here in Numbers 14,
Numbers 14:13 But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people. For you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, 16 ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ 17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, 18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ 19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
Moses, like a good lawyer, argues the case of the people before God. He doesn’t attempt to justify the actions of the people; they are unjustifiable. Instead he argues for the reputation of God. God is powerful, and has committed to be with this people. If he kills them all now, his name will be slandered among the nations; they will believe that he is not as powerful as they thought he was.
Understand, Moses is not puffing God’s ego; people thinking less of God, disbelieving in God does not injure God’s pride; it injures the people that refuse to believe in him. And God has a heart not only for his own people, but for the nations. God has already commanded his people to welcome the foreigner who desires to follow God and belong to his people. If they come to view him as unable to save, they are less likely to follow him, to turn and trust in him.
Moses also argues from God’s own revealed character. He prays scripture back to God. God revealed himself to Moses in Exodus 34;
Exodus 34:6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Here Moses calls on God to put his great power on display by keeping the promise of his character; this is a perfect opportunity to show that you are slow to anger, that you abound in steadfast love, that you indeed are able to forgive iniquity and transgression, and that you all the while retain your integrity and justice, by no means clearing the guilty. Moses calls on the immensity of God’s steadfast love, his covenant faithfulness, and his history of forgiving this persistently wayward people.
These are powerful lessons for prayer; a deep concern for God’s people, a passion for God’s glory, praying his words back to him, calling on him to be who he has revealed himself to be.
The Glory of God in Forgiveness and Justice
YHWH heard and answered this prayer.
Numbers 14:20 Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. 21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. 25 Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
‘I have pardoned, according to your word’. God grants forgiveness, but forgiveness does not imply escape from all of sin’s consequences. God threatened to wipe them out and start over. That’s what they deserved, but he does not give them all that they deserve.
Moses argued for God to defend the honor of his name among the nations; God answers ‘ all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD’. I will fill the earth with the weightiness of my character. God’s character is revealed both in justice and in mercy, in wrath and in forgiveness. He will not wipe all his rebellious people out immediately as they deserve, but those who saw his glory, saw his miraculous works, who persistently challenged God, disobeyed God, despised God, will not enter the land. Because God’s character is weighty, because he is just and will not let the guilty go unpunished, there will be consequences for their blatant rebellion.
Giving Them What They Desired
Numbers 14:26 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 27 “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. 28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35 I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
Again, God gives them what they asked for. They would rather die in the wilderness than enter the land; so be it. They rejected the land, so God will not force them to enter in. Their children will suffer for the unbelief of their parents. Sin has consequences not only on the one who sins, but on everyone around them. The children are not being punished for the sins of their fathers, but the sins of the fathers affect the lives of their children. The ones they claimed to be protecting will now suffer as a consequence of their rebellion.
But even in God’s just judgment, there is promise and hope. Their children will enter in. God says ‘I will bring them in, and they will know the land.’
Leaders Held Accountable
Numbers 14:36 And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— 37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land— died by plague before the LORD. 38 Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.
The whole nation deserved to die; only that generation would fall in the wilderness. The whole nation deserved to die immediately; only the ten leaders who influenced the people to rebel against God die immediately.
Written for Our Instruction
1 Corinthians 10 tells us ‘these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction’. Hebrews 3 warns us;
Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
***
Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org