Tag Archive | 40 years in the desert.

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 60

Mar1
Day 60.  Reading Numbers 14 – 15 and Psalm 90. 
 

Read today’s scripture.

What do you learn about God’s goodness?

Who can you share that with today?

Numbers 14.

Yesterday’s reading ended with a showdown. Two against ten.

Two spies (Joshua & Caleb) said the land of Canaan was ripe with food, and ready for picking. The inhabitants were big, but no problem for the children of God. Let’s go in and conquer!

Ten spies agreed that the land of Canaan was ripe with food, but bemoaned the giant cities with tall walls, and the giant people that made them look (in their own eyes) like grasshoppers.  NO WAY can we conquer!

And the rest of the two million people?  They were swayed by the TEN, and cried with a loud voice and wailed and wept. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron. They bemoaned (get this, for God will answer this prayer), “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in the wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sward? Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the people.

Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes and cried, “PEOPLE OF ISRAEL! The land is exceedingly good.  If the LORD delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us… Only DO NOT REBEL AGAINST THE LORD! Do not fear the people – they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them. THE LORD IS WITH US. Do not fear them!

As the masses were picking up stones to stone the two, the GLORY OF THE LORD appeared.

“MOSES, how long will this people despise me? How long will they not BELIEVE IN ME, in spite of all the signs I have done among them.  I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of YOU a nation greater and mightier than they!”

And once again, Moses interceded for the righteousness of the LORD’s name and honor (“If you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say, It is because the Lord was not able to bring them to the land as He swore.”).

And Moses pleaded for those horrible rebellious people too. He claimed and clung to God’s promises of love and mercy and forgiveness. (Please pardon the iniquity of the people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now!”)

Oh, for such an intercessor today!

And the LORD heard Moses’ prayer. “I have pardoned according to your word. BUT…..truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, NONE of the men who have seen my glory and my signs… and yet have put me to the test…and not obeyed my voice… shall see the land I swore to give to their fathers.  NONE who despised me shall see it.  And so, TURN BACK TOMORROW AND SET OUT FOR THE WILDERNESS.”

And to the people, God said, “As I live, what you have said, I will do. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and all those listed in the census, 20 years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, SHALL NOT ONE COME INTO THE LAND, except Caleb and Joshua.  Your little ones – whom you said would fall prey – THOSE I will bring into the land.

“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. I the LORD have spoken.”

And immediately those ten unfaithful spies died of a plague.  ZAAPP!!!

After hearing that horrible 40 year sentence of death, the people changed their minds.  “Here we are!  We will go up into the land that the LORD promised us!”

Moses: “No! Now you are being more rebellious. The LORD is not with you!!!”

People:  “But we WILL go up into the country and fight them!”

But  neither the Ark of the Covenant, nor Moses left the camp. And the Amalekites and Canaanites came down and defeated them.  (And so, the first of those thousands of fit-for-battle rebels died.)

  • O LORD, I confess that I am so often like the people of Israel. Please keep me from walking in my own sinful rebellious ways. Grant me faith to believe ALL You promise, and courage to obey. And Father, please keep me from presumptuous sins!  Give me a humble, loving heart as Moses had.

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Numbers 15.

Even though God had pronounced the “death penalty” on the older generation of Israelites, he still had in mind to give Israel (eventually) the land of Canaan.  And He still required the sacrifices and offerings to continue as the roamed the desert. Both unintentional and intentional (knowingly and deliberately done) sins are next covered. 

Unintentional sins require and offering. A Person who sins intentionally “with a high hand” despising the word of the LORD, shall be put to death.  The example of a man who deliberately went out to gather firewood on the Sabbath, was stoned to death.

God then gave a way for Israel to always remember His commands.  They (the men) were to make tassels for the corner of their garments (shirts), each with a blue thread on it. These would be visible to themselves and to each other.

When they looked at them, they were to remember “all the commandments of the LORD, to DO them, not to follow after their own heart and their own eyes, which they were inclined to whore after. They were to remember to DO all His commandments, and be holy to their God. ‘I am the LORD your God.'”

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Psalm 90.  “A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God”  

(Here Moses seems to be asking God to have mercy on sinful humans living in a sin-cursed world. It seems to have  been written to the older generation of Israelites who were dying off in the wilderness.)

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.”  ” …from everlasting to everlasting YOU are God.”   “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.”

“You return man to dust.”  “You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning…in the evening it fades and withers.”

“For all our days pass away under Your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone and we fly away.”

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!”

 

 

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#2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 60

Feb29

    Day 60 —  We are still in the second month, but we’ve begun a new book! We’ve been reading for over a 1/12 of a year! Praise God! I hope that it’s become a GOOD habit that will continue.

   Day 60 – Numbers 14 – 15, Psalm 90 – (Turning Back, Defeat, Promise, and a psalm of Moses)

Yesterday we saw the rebellious Israel turning from the Promised Land out of fear of the “giants in the land.”

Numbers 14 take up where we left off.  Not only does Israel fear to go into the Land, the want to kill Moses, choose a new leader and GO BACK to Egypt.  (Are you guys crazy??)

Joshua and Caleb plead with the people to enter the land, testifying that their God will surely give them victory. But the people decide to stone them.  Only the appearance of the Shekinah Glory of the LORD stops them. God offers Moses a SECOND chance to become the progenitor of His people, and he refuses, stressing God’s honor and glory that is involved. He begs that God will PARDON their sin according to the greatness of His mercy.

God hears Moses’s intercession for these rebellious ingrates, and pardons them. But there is a consequence they must endure – 40 years of desert wanderings until THAT generation (age 20 and up) all die. Only their teen and young children will have the chance to receive that Promised Land. (Joshua & Caleb and their families will also be exempt.)

So, TURN AROUND and head into that dry and barren land……

But still the people rebel!!  “No, we were wicked,” they confess. “We will go in as directed!”  But it is too late. As they swarm forward – against God’s word, without Him, the Ark of the Covenant, and Moses – they suffer absolute defeat from the Amalekites and Canaanites, giving those pagan enemies a chance to gloat, deride, and shame the LORD God Almighty.

Can’t you just see God dusting his hands of them all and turning his back on Israel? But no. God, our God, is ever faithful to his promises and his people. Instead in Numbers 15, He speaks of WHEN the people of Israel come into the Land to inhabit it, which HE is giving them.

Whoa! Such grace and mercy. Sure, they will endure consequences of their sin. Sure, it will be their children who go in and conquer the land.  But God does not utterly desert them.  He even describes the offerings they will make to Him with the produce of that Land.   He also distinguishes unintentional sins from outright defiance, giving grace to the one and harsh punishment to the other.

He reaffirms the importance of keeping the Sabbath sacred to Him, as He’s directed. And He tells ALL the people of Israel (not just priests) to make tassels on the corners of their garments, with a blue cord binding them, to remind them of all the commandments of the LORD which they are to obey and so be a holy nation go God.

Psalm 90 is the only psalm written my Moses. He writes of the eternality of God, and fact that man is made from dust. (Remember Moses wrote the book of Genesis too.)  He writes of God’s majesty and man’s sins (even the secret ones). Man’s life – in contrast to God’s everlasting existence – is but 70-80 years, and is full of toil and trouble, and ends with a sigh.  He asks God to teach his people how to “number” their days and apply their hearts to wisdom.  Then he ends with pleas for God’s presence and love and power and favor to be with and on his children.