Numbers 14:27-34

God went back on His word. Now how could He do this? We shall continue to see why He could do it. Don't forget that I am going through this in order to help you understand that even as He has likewise promised to bring us into the Kingdom of God, it is not unconditional.

Why didn't they make it? As a people, Israel tempted God ten times. God specifically mentions complaining, murmuring against His provision for them, and He outright called them evil. Now to tempt is to provoke or entice Him to do something wrong. But there is strong basis and just cause for God's judgment of them, because no sin stands alone. Murmuring is not a simple stand-by-itself sin, especially in regarding that the murmuring is against God. I want you again to consider that Israel entered into a covenant with God shortly after leaving Egypt. Let's go back to Exodus 19 and review that, and then in a little bit we'll get back to this murmuring again.

Here, in these brief four or five verses, the covenant is stripped bare of everything except its most essential parts. Those most essential parts are that God would be their God, and that He would provide for them. That appears in verse 4. Those are examples of how He provided. He would be their God, and He would provide for them, as He had already demonstrated that He could do in bringing them out of Egypt.

Very briefly, Israel's part was to obey Him. More specific terms are spelled out beginning in Exodus 20:1 and going all the way through Exodus 21, 22, into chapter 24 and up to verse 8. So in Exodus 20 through Exodus 24:8 are the specific terms of the agreement between the two.

A covenant is an agreement. It is a contract binding both parties to its conditions, or its terms. If one party does not hold up its end of the deal, the other party is not obligated to follow through on its part because of fraud. The other party in this agreement happened to be the holy, sinless, perfect-in-character Creator God.

Now parties entering into a contract do so in order that the partnership created by the agreement will be mutually beneficial. Contracts have clearly-stated terms, and each party agrees to fulfill those terms. Israel did not come anywhere close to fulfilling the terms of this agreement. Ten times they rejected Him, provoked Him. God was justified in His judgment of them.

The reason God specifically mentioned murmuring is because murmuring also involves presumption. This is bad. The complainer against God presumptuously regards his view as to how things ought to be as superior to the holy, sinless, perfect-in-character God, as if God is unaware what is going on in His family. Murmuring against God is presumption. God plainly says in Numbers 15 that this will not be forgiven. In one sense you could almost say that Israel committed the unpardonable sin in their complaining because of the presumption that is in it. That's how serious it is.

Secondly, murmuring involves ingratitude. It deprecates blessings received, and any inconvenience is exaggerated. Ingratitude easily forgets past kindnesses. That person is always operating on the idea, the approach, the concept of "What have you done for me lately?" Murmurers think that everything done by themselves is too much, as if they're being put upon, and that they should not be required to do this. The other side of that coin is everything done for them is too little, that it's never enough. Finally, murmuring is active antagonism against the holy God.

It's interesting that the author here says, "any of you should seem to come short of it." There is no doubt at all that he was thinking about the Exodus experience, and especially the experience of the children of Israel in the wilderness. Those who died in the wilderness came short of it. It's another way of saying that if we act like they did, we're not going to be there either.

The point is this: God, without doubt, made the solemn promise. He admitted that. However, Israel entered … . . .

Numbers 14:26-33

This next one is in the middle of God pronouncing a curse upon all those Israelites who had believed the false spies.

And then He tells them that they will be doing this for 40 years.

Again, it is 20 years old and above; and it is the ones under twenty that would go into the land, and He calls them "little ones."

And so, obviously, what He is saying here is that from twenty years old and above, each person was accountable for his decisions. And, evidently, the decision of just about everyone in the whole camp of Israel from twenty years old and above, except for Joshua, and Caleb, was that they were going to disbelieve the good report, and believe the false report. God made them responsible for that. He considered that an adult decision, and thus, the curse.

Numbers 14:26-35

Just as Joshua had foreshadowed in his words to them, they failed to submit and they became rebels. And you know what they got for their rebellion? An extremely stiff sentence from God. Verse 26:

That's stiff and He was quite angry. You can tell by the words He used that He said, "Enough! You've rejected Me once too often, now I reject you."