Psalm 106, verse 24 is where we will start tonight.
We've just been breaking down all these different
instances of Israel's disobedience and looking
at some of these examples. These are not necessarily
listed in chronological order. They kind of jump
back and forth. Some of the ones that are listed
before happen later and then skip to one that's
happened before. Kind of bouncing back and forth,
so they're not necessarily in chronological order,
but the psalmist here is just covering some of
the big moments in Israel's past where they were
disobedient, and there were certainly plenty
of them. We've kind of seen a theme here. They
were disobedient. God was angry with them. We
would see Moses or Aaron or both of them intercede
for the people in some way or atone for their
sinfulness. And it's a good foreshadowing there
of what Jesus was going to do, that ultimately
we would be no better off than the Israelites.
We too would be sinners deserving of God's wrath,
but there is one who stepped up for us and took
atonement for us and made atonement for us, and
that was Jesus Christ. And so tonight we are
just looking at another example of Israel's disobedience
in Psalm 106, verse 24. Just four verses is all
we'll look at. And if you want to go ahead and
put a finger in Numbers 14. Numbers 14. We were
in Numbers 16 a week or two ago. And looking
at that story. And tonight we're flipping back
a little bit in time. And looking at Numbers
14. We're not going to read through the whole
chapter. That'd be good homework for you this
week. If you want something to read, read through
Numbers 14. You'll get a little more of the context
about what's going on, but we're going to hit
the high notes. So let's pray, and then we'll
get started. God, we come to you tonight. We
look at so many of these examples of Israel being
disobedient, dear Lord, and let us look at our
own lives and help us, dear Lord, just let your
Holy Spirit just convict us. Maybe there are
areas in our life now where we're being disobedient
and maybe we're missing some of your blessing.
And I pray, dear Lord, that we wouldn't be so
stubborn and so hard -headed, but that we would
be those who hear your word and hear your commands
just as the Israelites did. And maybe we can
do better in some ways than follow them, but
dear Lord, a lot of times we just don't do any
better. We do just as bad. And so we ask for
your grace and your mercy that you would just,
Be patient with us, dear Lord, that through Jesus
Christ that we would receive that grace and atonement
for our sins. We don't deserve it, but I pray
that you just help us to continue to come back
to the cross, dear Lord, because where else can
we go? So I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen. All right, Psalm 106, verse 24. This is
speaking of the Israelites here when it says
they. They despised the pleasant land and did
not believe his promise. They grumbled in their
tents and did not listen to the Lord's voice.
So he raised his hand against them with an oath
that he would make them fall in the desert and
would disperse their descendants among the nations,
scattering them throughout the lands. So the
people are so close to getting to go into the
promised land. They had been delivered from Egypt.
They had made their way. And they were right
on the precipice of being able to cross over
into the promised land. And there were some spies
that were sent to see what was going on, to see
what things looked like there. And when the spies
came back, they were afraid. They said, hey,
look, this land is fantastic, but there are some
folks there that are big and strong and scary,
and I just don't think we can do it. If we go
in there, they are going to slaughter us. And
that's what's being referenced here in this particular
passage, that God had brought them out of slavery.
He said, I'm going to take you to your own land
flowing with milk and honey. It's yours. You
just got to go in there. All you got to do is
just go get it. I'm with you. It's yours. Just
go get it. And the people were too afraid to
do what God had called them to do. And that's
what this... This part of this psalm is talking
about they grumbled in their tents. They did
not listen to the Lord. They were too afraid.
They were just complaining all the time about
everything. And as a result of that, they experienced
God's punishment. Now, we've already seen some
examples in the last few weeks. People that were
disobedient, and God's ready to destroy them
all. And some of them he did destroy, and some
of them suffered consequences, great consequences.
A plague came on them, and there was all kind
of stuff that took place. And so you would think
in all of these stories that God's people at
some point would start to learn their lesson,
but they really never do. And I guess maybe there's
something to be said for that, because how many
times should we have learned our lesson? How
many lessons are there things that we've done
repeatedly and we should have learned them by
now? We should have learned them when we were
10, when we were 20, when we were 30, when we
were 40. And maybe for some of us tonight, we're
70, we're 80, and maybe there's still some lessons
that we should have learned and we're still struggling
with them. And that's not a good thing. It's
not like, oh, well, that's just humanity. We
just do that. Well, we do fail sometimes, but
we should never just be content to say, well.
People just fail. Well, we do fail, but we should
strive to try to do better. And maybe by looking
at these examples in Scripture and maybe some
of our own failures, we can look back and say,
you know what? I know the power of God. I just
need to start trusting God. And these people
didn't trust God, and they found themselves in
a lot of trouble as a result of that. And maybe
that's true for us too. Sometimes in our foolishness,
Some of our bad choices, we find ourselves in
some trouble that could have been avoided had
we have listened to the Lord. But like the Israelites,
there are plenty of times in our life that maybe
we just didn't listen in the way that we should.
Now, the first three verses that we looked at,
we see this in Numbers 14. We see this story
kind of unfold. The last verse that we looked
at here in verse 27, it's... It's actually a
reference to Ezekiel. And, of course, the story
in Ezekiel is also pointing back to the same
event. But that's kind of more of a connection
with Ezekiel than it is in the passages that
we're going to look at in Numbers. But if you
flip back to Numbers 14, you'll see this story.
Now, I've kind of gone over the story with you.
We won't go over it in great detail tonight.
Like I said... You can go through and read through
all of it this week. But just to get a little
more context and kind of see the story unfold
in numbers, let's look at Numbers 14, verses
1 through 3. This is after the spies went out
and a report came back in and the people were,
oh, things are so bad. We should have just stayed
in Egypt. It's horrible. We can't go into the
land. And this is the response of the people
that we see here. Numbers 14, verse 1. Then the
whole community broke into loud cries, and people
wept that night. All the Israelites complained
about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community
told them, If we had only died in the land of
Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness,
why is the Lord bringing us into this land to
die by the sword? Our wives and little children
will become plunder. wouldn't it be better for
us to go back to Egypt? Well, that seems kind
of like a little bit of an extreme reaction.
Now, these are the same people that were enslaved
in Egypt, that had witnessed the power of God's
plagues, and they had witnessed the power of
being delivered, and they weren't just delivered
empty -handed. They were delivered with all this
gold and stuff that they were able to take out
with them. I mean, they were delivered with wealth
and freedom. They see God part the Red Sea. Even
in all the disobedience they had seen up to this
point and experienced up to this point, the gold
calf and all their complaining. And God had got
them all this way and brought them right here
to the promised land. He said he was going to
give them. And they get a bad report. Oh, the
people in the land are big and strong. What are
we going to do? And they just go to the extreme.
Oh, we should have just, it would be better if
we had died in Egypt. That would have been better
than where we are now. If we had died between
Egypt and here in the wilderness, we'd be better
than we were now. It would be better if we just
turned around and went back. Woe is us. The sky
is falling. Everything is so bad. And they just
went totally to the extreme. Now, we don't ever
do that about anything, do we? We don't ever
go to the extreme about nothing, do we? Something
bad happens, it didn't happen just like we wanted
to, and then all of a sudden we just forget it.
I don't want to hear nothing. I don't want to
do it anymore. I'm done. We go to the extreme
about the stupidest little things. We make a
pizza at night, and we want a pizza, and we want
some ranch dipping sauce. And we get our pizza
cut up and on the plate, and we go to reach for
the ranch dipping sauce, and there ain't none
in the refrigerator. And we say, just forget
it. I'm not hungry. I don't want anything to
eat. Now, that's not a true story, by the way.
I'm just using an example. I'm just using a random
example here. But sometimes we go to the extreme
on things like that. Y 'all don't do that. I
know y 'all don't ever do that. But sometimes
things aren't as bad as they seem, and maybe
if we just stopped for a second, we'd realize
that maybe a little bit of an overreaction. You
know, you see that football season, like you
get a quarterback that, like they played great
for ten weeks, and then they throw three interceptions
one Sunday, and then the next Monday, it's like
the next day, it's like fire them, send them
to the Cleveland Browns where they can just rot
away with the rest of the players there. We just
overreact about things as human beings, and it's
not a good thing. And this was a serious thing.
This was an awesome thing that God said, I'm
going to take you to a great place. And then
all of a sudden there's one little thing that
just goes wrong and they're just, oh, it's over.
We'd just be better off dead than to be here.
But what they should have said was, hey, God's
been pretty good. I know what God's done for
us. We've heard God speak. We've seen God's instructions.
We've seen God's leader in Moses. We've seen
these awesome miracles. This is going to be kind
of scary, but hey, we see what God can do, so
let's go in there and get this land, y 'all.
But they didn't do it. Now, how many times do
we know God's Word and know God's power? And
we should be ready to say, okay, I'm up against
this really hard thing that's in my life, or
maybe there's something we feel called to do,
and it's kind of scary, and we're like, golly,
I don't have the skill set to do that, or I feel
uncomfortable doing that, but... But there's
something in us that convicts us, that just tugs
at us, that makes us want to feel like it's what
we need to do. And we become too afraid and we
say, man, I can't do that. We come up with all
these excuses and we just kind of throw our hands
up. And maybe we're missing the blessing that
God wants to bless us with, the way that he wants
to use us to bless somebody else, which is also
a blessing to us. We just give up because it's
too scary what's before us. Well, what was before
them? It seemed scary to them. They were ready
to die. It was so scary. And they were complaining
all over the place. Well, Joshua and Caleb were
two of the ones that had gone into the promised
land. And they came back with a good report.
They said, hey, look, this is good. This is going
to be scary, but we need to go in there and get
what God has given us. We see that if you skip
down a couple of verses into verse 7. Joshua
and Caleb here, it says, and said to the entire
Israelite community, The land we passed through
and explored is an extremely good land. If the
Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into
this land, a land flowing with milk and honey,
and give it to us. Only don't rebel against the
Lord, and don't be afraid of the people of the
land, for we will devour them. Their protection
has been removed from them, and the Lord is with
us. Don't be afraid of them. Now, that's good
instruction right there. Joshua has some sense.
He has some wisdom. He says, look, this is going
to be all right. Like God brought us here for
this all the way here, and he said he was taking
us to a land of milk and honey, and boy, is this
land good. This is a good land. Yeah, there's
people there, but God's going to take care of
us, and he's going to devour them. And Joshua
tried to talk some sense into them, but they
weren't having anything to do with it. If you
skip down toward the bottom of the chapter there
in Numbers chapter 14, verse 28, we see the Lord
speaking here in verse 28. The Lord is not happy
with the people. They don't listen to Joshua
and say, all right, Joshua, you're right. Let's
go in there and take this land. Nope. They continue
their complaining. Moses intercedes for them,
as is usually the case. And then in verse 28,
the Lord says, Tell them, as surely as I live,
this is the Lord's declaration, I will do to
you exactly as I heard you say. Your corpses
will fall in this wilderness, all of you who
were registered in the census, the entire number
of you, 20 years old or more, because you have
complained about me. I swear that none of you
will enter the land I promised to settle you
in, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua,
son of Nun. So God says, okay, you say you'd
rather die in the wilderness? You're going to
get what you want. I brought you here to bring
you into a promised land to bless you, to take
care of you. But if you'd rather do it your way,
if you'd rather die in the wilderness, God says,
so be it. You're going to die in the wilderness.
And they were so close to experiencing the blessing
of God, but because of their disobedience, they
ended up missing it. They ended up dying in their
disobedience and missing God's blessing. Now,
how many times is there blessing that God wants
to pour out on us? How many times may God be
calling us to something? To do something for
Him, to serve Him in some way, to minister to
somebody else in some way. How many ways might
God want to bless us in service to Him and we
just refuse God's blessing because it looks too
hard? Now, I'm not implying when I say God's
blessing, I'm not implying that it's riches or
wealth or whatever that may be. A lot of times
God's blessing... It's just simply doing the
right thing. I mean, there's a great blessing,
and if God calls you to do something, to go help
somebody, to love on somebody, and you do that,
like, man, you're just so blessed by being obedient
to God. It doesn't even have anything to do with
what you're going to get in return. A blessing
is not necessarily a physical thing in return.
It's just knowing you did the right thing. Now,
in their case, there was going to certainly be
some physical return, and sometimes in our life
there is too. There's certainly... physical blessing
that comes. But how many times do we miss God's
blessings because of our disobedience? It was
all right there before. God says, here's how
I want to bless you if you would just trust me.
And how many times are there in our life that
maybe God's saying the same thing to us? That
God's calling us to something, leading us to
something and saying, Here's what I called you
to do. I want to bless you. I want to be with
you. Here's what I want you to do. Just go and
do it. In the first little roadblock, we say,
ah, golly, I can't do that. I'm not equipped.
I'm not qualified. I'm not brave enough. I'm
not whatever. We could all write a book of the
excuses we've used. But maybe we could learn
from God's people here and take a second to think
about those opportunities when they come. And
think about the words of Joshua. And Joshua says,
look, if God has brought you here, if God's called
you to this place, he's going to be with you,
so let's go do what God wants us to do. And maybe
Joshua's words can be an encouragement to us.
We just started Joshua in Sunday school on Sunday
mornings. In chapter 1, we see right there at
the beginning, he says multiple times, don't
be afraid. The Lord's with you. Don't be afraid.
You don't have to fear. It's all good. That's
the same message that we see Joshua speaking
of here in Numbers 14. Joshua says God's going
to be with you. You don't have to be afraid.
So let us think about that in our life. Next
time we feel that there's something in us that
I believe is the Holy Spirit that's just convicting
us and calling us and feels like, man, I need
to do that. I need to step out in that way. May
we have courage to do that. If the Lord's calling,
may we have courage to follow and trust Him even
if it may be hard. Let's pray. God, we come to
You. We thank You for these good words and these
stories of Israel's past and maybe their stories,
dear Lord, remind us some of our stories. God,
maybe we have been disobedient more times than
we even care to say, dear Lord. We're embarrassed,
ashamed. in our disobedience. And I pray, dear
Lord, that you forgive us for the opportunities
that we've missed to serve and to listen and
to follow you. And maybe we've missed some of
your blessing along the way, but maybe there's
some opportunities now, some ways that you want
to bless us now or use us to bless others now,
dear Lord. Some things that you're calling us
to that may at first glance seem pretty scary,
but I pray that we would just trust you and that
we would seek you and that we would know that
you're good. And that wherever you lead us in
life, God, you're not going to lead us there
to just stay there. If we just trust you, dear
Lord, you'll lead us right on through whatever
it is. And so I pray, God, that we would learn
from the Israelites' mistakes here, that we would
not be those who come up short of your blessing,
but that we be those who follow through and trust
you and get to see your blessing. And I ask these
things in Jesus' name. Amen.