Numbers 14:11-23

Now it is clear from reading this passage that God’s longsuffering—patience—is not without bounds. He will reach a breaking point at some time. We can wear His patience very thin. We can wear it out completely, if we take it that far.

However, this story is actually an example of just how extensive His patience and longsuffering is. I mean, think about what Israel was doing here. Like He said, they had tested Him 10 times, even though they had seen all those things that He had done for them—starting way back with the first plague all the way through until this point, over two years of God’s constant work on their behalf. Plague after plague in Egypt, and then He brings them out after destroying that land. He saves them in the Red Sea. They see their enemy dead on the coast. Then they go trudging through the wilderness, hardly any food or water in the whole place, and He provides it for them—water for millions of people—gallons and gallons and gallons, a lake full of water for them every day. And then, He also rained manna from heaven for them, and they were given quail.

God went out of His way to give them the things that they needed. He defeated their enemies. All Moses had to do was hold his arms up, and their enemies fell. He showed them the way across the wilderness, not only by day in a Pillar of Cloud, but He also lit it up in the evening and so they had a fiery presence of God at night. They knew He was there. They did not think that He was way off in heaven. He was right there with them all the time—two years so far in this story, but it eventually ended up being 40 years. And if we go into Deuteronomy, He tells us that their shoes did not wear out, their clothes did not wear out, that everything just remained constantly good and usable for all that time.

And yet, they were rejecting Him, because these silly people across the border were taller than they were! It is incredible.

They were rejecting His plan, and His promises that He made to them, as well as to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then to all of them back on Mount Sinai. They were rejecting His law, they were rejecting His servants, they were rejecting His providence, and they were rejecting everything about God. Though He was tempted to start over, and voiced that to Moses, yet He pardons them, and puts up with them for another 38 years until they died. That is just incredible patience—incredible longsuffering. His nose is very long, as it were.

Just think—put yourself in God’s place—of all the complaining that He heard in those 40 years. All the reluctance to do anything that He, through Moses, told them to do. And of course, there was all the disobedience starting with idolatry, and fornication, and who knows all the things they did there in the wilderness. They gave Him grief, after grief, after grief for all that time. It must, to Him, seemed like an interminable journey across the wilderness. Yet, He patiently endured them and all their unbelief. It sounds a lot like that story I gave you as I began, that God endured this man for 80 years, “can’t you endure him for one night?” He endured the children of Israel for 40 years. And that is enough to turn anyone’s hair absolutely white. It would us.

I am surprised that Moses ended up like he was. It says his natural vigor had not abated, even when he was 120 years old, and his eye was not dim. He took it. He was in many ways similarly patient with the people of Israel, because he understood God’s patience. And, that is what we are supposed to be doing—learning God’s will in all this—to be patient and start doing this thing ourselves, showing this same patience toward one another.

Did you know that it says in Deuteronomy 7 that God did all this to Israel those 40 years because He loved them! All of His longsuffering He did because He loved them, His people Israel. And then, despite all that they had done, He would keep His oath, He would bless them, and multiply them in the land.

That … . . .

Numbers 14:18

There we see God being described as longsuffering. In Numbers 14:18, Moses describes aspects of the character of God, presenting a composite quotation of His own words of loyal love for and faithful discipline of his people.

Mainstream Christianity has rejected the true message of the Old Testament because they have been taught, through popular culture, and through deceived false teachers, that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath whereas the God of the New Testament is all mercy and grace. And of course, as Satan has intended, this distortion of God's truth is meant to pervert the understanding of such wonderful godly attributes as His longsuffering. Thus, God is falsely painted as all wrathful and no mercy; or the opposite extreme, all mercy and no wrath.

But Moses knew God intimately. He knew Him as a consuming fire; he also knew Him as a warm and tender God. Moses reminds us that while God's wrath is real, it is long delayed. The most amazing thing about the wrath of God is how much provocation He tolerates before He finally acts in righteous judgment.

Probably there has been occasion when we all have wished that God would zap this evil, or destroy that group of people or army. But the fact that He has not thrown lightning bolts as soon as we sin is a vivid reminder that He may extend His longsuffering with us as He wills and as long as He desires.

In David's prayer for mercy in Psalm 86 he hoped and pleaded that God would save him, even though David knew himself that he was a sinner.

The Hebrew words rendered "longsuffering" here means that there was, and would be, delay in His anger. That His anger was not easily or quickly agitated and He did not act from passion or sudden resentment. He endured the conduct of sinners for a long period of time without rising up to punish them. He was not quick to take vengeance, but bore with them patiently. Longsuffering is associated with God's mercy and abundant kindness by the Levites in Nehemiah 9:17.

Even when the Israelites made a molded calf for themselves and said it was the god that brought them out of Egypt and worked great provocations, we see that though they thumbed their nose at God, going as far as overt idolatry, God still was slow to anger in dealing with them. In spite of all the Lord had taught and done for the Israelites, they (our forefathers) did not obey God's Word. In the light of such abundant generosity, their contrasting disloyalty comes as an immense shock—until we examine our own hearts and realize that we are capable of the same exact thing without God's Holy Spirit.

Had we been among the wilderness wanderers, we are not likely to have behaved much better without God's Holy Spirit. Their sin is serious, but what makes it tragic is its persistent repetition through history. The Levites listed eight things that they were guilty of, both nationally and individually:

1. Stubborn pride (verse 16, "acted proudly and hardened their necks")

2. Heedlessness (verse 16, "did not heed Your commandments")

3. Deliberately disloyal (verse 17, "refused to obey")

4. Willfully blind (verse 17 "not mindful of Your wonders that you did among them")

5. Blatant rebellion (verse 17, "in their rebellion they appointed a leader to return to their bondage")

6. Pathetic idolatry (verse 18, made a molded calf for themselves)

7. Unashamed profanity (verse 18, "this is your god")

8. Knowingly obstinate (verse 18, "worked great provocations")

Even though the Israelites were guilty of these eight things (and much more) God was slow to anger and was willing to give them time to repent. It is the story of wayward humanity, not just of rebellious Israel. Only a merciful and longsuffering God rescues such a people.

God is slow to anger and relents from doing harm. His longsuffering is seen in His gracious restraint of His wrath toward those who deserve His wrath. He waited patiently for 120 years while Noah built the ark and gathered the … . . .

Numbers 14:13-19

Israel refused to believe that God would be with them, and this event was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Numbers 14:22 says that this was the tenth time that Israel had tested God. After ten occasions, it was pretty clear that this generation of Israelites did not have hearts which trusted God, and so God swore that they would not enter.

But Moses interceded on Israel’s behalf (Numbers 14:13-19), and God relented. Every Israelite should have been dead at this point, except for the faithful leaders. Yet God showed mercy in allowing the next generation to grow up enough to be capable of inheriting the land. Even though God relented and did not destroy the whole nation, He still determined that the nation—as it says in verse 34—was going to know His rejection. God was also merciful in counting the time they had already been in the wilderness as time served, as it were. But the remaining 38 years were about Israel knowing God’s rejection. Every step they took, and every day that passed without being in the land, was a reminder that they had rejected God, and now they were estranged.