Numbers 13 - 15

Numbers — Steve Gregg

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Numbers 13 - 15

NumbersSteve Gregg

In Numbers 13-15, Steve Gregg delves into the biblical account of the twelve spies sent by Moses to scout out the land of Canaan. As they return with reports of its abundance and beauty, doubts and murmurs among the Israelites arise, expressing fear of the powerful inhabitants. Gregg explores the underlying reasons for this lack of faith and the consequences of their rebellion, emphasizing the importance of true repentance. Additionally, he highlights the significance of entering God's rest and unveils the severe consequences faced by those who profaned the Sabbath.

Transcript

The story resumes now at Numbers chapter 13. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the children of Israel from each tribe of their fathers. You shall send a man, every one a leader among them.

So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Teran according to the command of the Lord. All of the men who were the heads of the children of Israel. It gives their names, and these are not the names we've heard so many times from each tribe.

There's one leader of each tribe who is sent out to spy out the land for the tribe. And they're not the guys we've been hearing about, but the guys we've been hearing about are needed for the various duties that are done in the camp. These guys have to be dispatched for a spying mission.

And so of the tribe of Reuben, a guy named Shemua, of the tribe of Simeon, a guy named Shaphat. Verse six of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, obviously an important character in the story later on. From the tribe of Issachar, Egal, the son of Joseph, from the tribe of Ephraim, Hosea, the son of Nun, which is also Joshua, the son of Nun.

Later on, we're told that Moses called Joshua, or called Hosea Joshua. We've already, of course, been exposed to Joshua in many of the stories earlier. He must have gone by both names.

But he represented the tribe of Ephraim. From the tribe of Benjamin, Palti, the son of Raphu, from the tribe of Zebulun, Gadiel, the son of Sodhi. From the tribe of Joseph, that is from the tribe of Manasseh, since we already had the tribe of Ephraim mentioned in verse eight.

The other part of Joseph's tribe is Manasseh. The son is Gadi, the son of Susi. From the tribe of Dan, Amiel, the son of Gamali.

And from the tribe of Asher, Sethar, the son of Michael. From the tribe of Naphtali, Nabi, the son of Batsi. That's a different name, doesn't even look like a Hebrew name to me.

And from the tribe of Gad, Guel, the son of Maki. These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and Moses called Hosea, the son of Nun, Joshua. So Moses sent them out to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, go up this way into the south and go up to the mountains and see what the land is like.

Whether the people who dwell in the land are strong or weak, few or many. Whether the land they dwell in is good or bad, whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor, whether there are forests there or not. Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.

Now, the time was the season of first ripe grapes, which explains why they were able to bring some fruit back. Now, this dispatch of the spies is said at the very beginning of the chapter to have been initiated by God or one would get the impression it was initiated by God. It doesn't say it was initiated by God.

We're just told that God said to send them. When Moses recalls this story in the book of Deuteronomy. And he's retelling it, he indicates it was really the people who had this idea first.

And it makes sense that it would be. It said in Deuteronomy one and verse twenty two, as Moses is retelling their story, says, and every one of you came near to me. And so let us send men before us and let them search out the land for us and bring back word for us of the way by which we should go up and of the cities into which we should come.

And Moses said, and the plan pleased me well. So I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe, and they departed and went up to the mountains and came to the valley of Eshgal and spied it out. Now, it sounds like Moses is saying that the people had the idea of sending spies and it sounded good to Moses.

Now, in numbers, it says that the Lord told him to send spies. Of course, there's no contradiction here. It would be it's apparent that the people wanted spies to be sent.

Moses thought it might be a good idea, consulted the Lord and the Lord confirmed it. It said, yes, send them, send the spies out. Here's the names of the guys and here's what they shall spy out and find out.

Now, why God would allow this is hard to say. It certainly sounds almost like a lack of faith on their part to send spies because they are going to find out whether the people in the land are weak or strong, whether it's a good land or a bad land. Well, God's already said it's the land of milk and honey.

You know, why do they need spies to tell them whether it's a good land or a bad land? It seems almost like a mistake to send the spies, and it certainly turned out to be a disaster since 10 of the 12 spies brought back a bad report, which required because of the following rebellion of the children of Israel required them to wander for 40 years or 38 years in the wilderness. It just sounds like a bad idea. Why would God do it? Well, the people wanted it.

And again, he gave them their request. And the spies seeing the land from Moses point of view could have encouraged the people. Moses had not seen the land, but God had said it was a land flowing with milk and honey.

So Moses, when it seemed good to him, like that's a good idea. Let's inspire. He probably figured the report would be a good one that comes back.

It'll encourage the people when they hear how lush the land is and how beautiful it is and how desirable it is from the spies. Then the people will stop grumbling and be happy and thankful and enthusiastic. I'm sure Moses thought that because it never crossed Moses mind for a moment that there'd be a problem conquering the land.

That's what became the worry of the Israelites because they didn't have faith in God. But Moses assumed conquering the land. That's a given.

God's on our side, so we can't lose there. So go bring back information about the land so we can know what we're facing. We won't be surprised and we'll we'll hear how good a land it is and we'll be enthusiastic.

And God allowed it. But why? I think God knew how it was going to turn out, but I believe it was a test like the many tests Israel facing the wilderness. Their faith in God was tested by seeing and hearing of the challenge that they had not considered.

They didn't know. The size of the inhabitants and the challenge of conquering their cities, they only knew there was a good land. But when they heard the obstacles that then became an opportunity for them to trust God or not.

And as in every other case, God allowed this to be a test of their faith, a test which they failed. And so verse 21 says, they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. That's a distance, I understand, of about 180 miles total length.

And they spent 40 days doing that. It says, and they went through the south and came to Hebron, Ahimon, Shishai and Talmai. And the descendants of Anak were there.

Now, we read about the descendants of Anak later on that they were, it says in verse 33, the descendants of Anak came from the giants. So they saw giants there. And when we talk about giants, we're just talking about very large people, we're not talking about Jack and the Beanstalk type giants.

We're talking about Goliath type giants. Goliath was between nine and 10 feet tall. That's a pretty big man.

That's bigger than even Bo, but he'd just be, you know, he'd be at about an average basketball player today. But no, basketball players aren't really that tall, but they get close. And there are giants that size today.

There are men that tall. They're genetic, you know, oddities. But they exist.

But there were apparently families of such large people in the old days. In fact, maybe when there isn't a genetic oddity of a giant today, maybe it's a throwback, a recessive gene that comes all the way through history from that time. I don't know.

But large people do exist and small people exist in different parts of the world. There's, I mean, pygmies are pretty unusual in their smallness, but we know they exist because they still exist. And so people of all different sizes have existed in the past, including some families, races that were giants bigger than ordinary people.

Now, it says also when it has mentioned Hebron in verse 22, it says, now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. This is one of the other incidental evidences that Moses really wrote this. You know, the documentary hypothesis is that these books were written centuries later when the Jews had been in Israel for centuries and then they'd gone into captivity in Babylon and come back again.

And then these books were written after that. But why then would somebody writing that late compare Hebron with a place in Egypt? Hebron, by the way, was an extremely well-known city in Judah. In Israel, and therefore, they wouldn't need to be told specifics centuries after the time that the Israelites had lived in Israel, they wouldn't need to be told things about Hebron, and especially not by comparison with things in Egypt.

It's obvious this is written to people who were assumed to be familiar with Egypt, but not with the Canaan. And that would be only true of the Israelites at the time of Moses, because they had been in Egypt, but they had not been in Canaan. So Hebron was built in seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

Now, the readers are assumed to know when Zoan was built in Egypt. But they wouldn't know when Hebron was born, was built unless they were told. So they're more familiar with this location in Egypt than with a very eventually a well-known town in Israel.

So these are obviously people from Egypt. This is this is written to. Then they came to the valley of Eshgal, which was so-called, we find out, because Eshgal means cluster and because they I think they named it that or someone named that because of this great cluster of grapes that they got there.

There they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes they carried between two people on a pole. Now, sometimes the pictures in the Bible picture books picture these grapes the size of, you know, cantaloupe or cantaloupe or something. But they're probably ordinary sized grapes, but just a huge cluster of them.

A very, very fruitful land. These clusters of grapes are so heavy it takes two men to carry them between them on a pole. And that's, you know, indicated as how unusually fruitful this land was.

They also brought some of the pomegranates and the figs from the place. Those would be a nice supplement to whoever got to eat those to the manna. They didn't have fruit growing out in the wilderness.

So it's kind of nice to get some fruit. How much they brought back, we don't know, but probably not enough for two or three million people. Some leaders got to eat them in all likelihood.

The place is called the Valley of Eshgal because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there. So it was obviously the Israelites that gave it that name. It wasn't called Eshgal before that, but because they cut down that particular cluster, the Israelites called it the Valley of the Cluster.

And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days. So they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Peran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and all the congregation showed them the fruit of the land.

Then they told him and said, we went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit.

Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong. Their cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there, the giants, the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south.

The Hittites and Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. That information apparently got the people stirred up because it says Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it. But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they're stronger than we.

So here is the failure of their faith. The people are stronger than us, so we can't take it. What's that got to do with anything? Where's where's God in their thinking? Many situations we face in the world are beyond our control.

We just have to trust God for them. And if God has promised something, especially then the fact that we can't make it happen is totally irrelevant. It's not up for us to make it happen, it's for God to make it happen if he promises it.

There's a similar crisis that was faced by Judah in the days of King Jehoshaphat. And this huge army, much larger than the armies of Judah, attacked Jehoshaphat, who was the king of the nation of Judah. He happened to be a godly one.

They didn't have very many godly kings, but he was a godly king. And they were attacked by a coalition of the Moabites, the Ammonites and the people of Mount Seir, which were Edomites. And it was a much larger force than Jehoshaphat could hope to face.

And in Second Chronicles, Chapter 20. It says, Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord and from the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord.

And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and prayed. And essentially, his prayer ends up in verse 12. Oh, our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us, nor do we know what to do.

But our eyes are on you. And this is really the way that Israel should have faced the same kind of crisis. Jehoshaphat said, we don't have any power against this great multitude.

They've got us outclassed. We can't beat them, but our eyes are not on us. Our eyes are on you.

And so we're calling on you to fix it. The people of Israel in Moses' day had every opportunity to look to God, too. They'd seen his miracles day by day.

He'd even given them victory over the Amalekites on a previous occasion. And certainly they saw that God could destroy the army of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. They should have known that if God is going to conquer the Canaanites, it was not going to be a problem.

But their eyes were not on God. They're just continually weakened in their faith by their consideration of natural circumstances. But there were two honest men who feared God and trusted God, Caleb and Joshua.

We've read about Caleb. We'll read about Joshua also shortly. But Caleb was the first one who said, let's go up and take it.

We can easily take the place. But verse 32 says that the larger number gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land, which they spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people whom we saw in it are of great stature.

Now, a land that devours its inhabitants, it's hard to know what that means. It certainly doesn't mean that it's a land like a desert that doesn't provide enough food because they've already pointed out it's flowing with milk and honey. And there's a lot of fruit there.

It may mean that there are other conditions there that are threatening to the inhabitants, maybe wild animals coming out of the jungle of the Jordan, bears and lions and stuff that we know used to be in that region or something else. But there were also big people there, giants. And so they said, we can't take it.

There we saw the giants. The descendants of Anak came from the giants. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight.

And so we were in their sight. So that's the report. We were like grasshoppers before these were like insects.

They could squish us like bugs. That's how we saw ourselves. That's how they saw us.

Now, chapter 14, then all the congregation lifts up their voices and cried and the people wept that night, crying again. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation said to them, if only we had died in the land of Egypt or if only we had died in this wilderness. Turns out they're going to get their wish on that.

Why has the Lord brought us out to this land to fall by the sword that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? So they said to one another, let's select a leader and return to Egypt. So this is the worst rebellion the Israelites have had yet. They've murmured before, but now they're talking about rebelling.

Actually, they were going to stone Moses and Aaron, we'll find out. They were thinking about it. And Joshua and Caleb, too.

Anyone faithful to Yahweh, these people were going to stone him to death and they were going to get a new leader and have him taken back to Egypt. This is just an outright evil rebellion against God and against God's leadership. So Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

We're going to find Moses and Aaron falling on their faces a number of times in the narrative of the Book of Numbers. And it's not entirely clear what it means. They probably fell down and prayed in all likelihood.

It says they did it before all the assembly of the congregation, but that might just mean that that's where they were at the time when they heard the people murmuring. Moses and Aaron realized there's nothing to do but pray. And so they just went down on their faces.

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, which is a mark of grief. And they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, the land we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us.

A land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord for fear, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has departed from them and the Lord is with us.

Do not fear them. Now, that should have inspired the people. These were two of the spies.

They've been there. They've seen the land. They say it's well worth it.

The people, if God's on our side and by mentioning God, that should have raised everyone's faith because they've seen God do miracles among them. And if the Lord delights in us, he'll bring us into the land. He'll give it to us.

This is faith speaking. This is intelligence speaking to based on their experience. But it says all the congregation said to stone them with stones.

Now, the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel. That's a dramatic highlight of the story when the glory of the Lord appears before everyone. He didn't always, but it's obvious that the children of Israel are going to be in trouble now.

Just like when Miriam and Aaron were criticizing Moses and suddenly the Lord spoke to them out of the tabernacle and said, come over here. I mean, God shows up in the midst of their grumbling and you can tell he's angry. He's going to do something.

And it says, and the Lord said to Moses, how long will these people reject me and how long will they not believe me with all the signs which I performed among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them. And I will make you make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. This is something, of course, God had also offered to Moses when they had made the golden calf back in Exodus, chapter 32, verse 10.

God had said that he'd do the same thing. He'd wipe them all out and just create a new nation out of Moses. And as on that occasion, Moses prayed for them and interceded.

It's interesting, sometimes God's angry and Moses placates him, sometimes Moses is angry. And, you know, God and Moses take turns being the angry ones here. God's angry at them now.

And Moses said to the Lord, then the Egyptians will hear it. For by your might, you brought these people up from among them and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among these people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, that your cloud stands above them and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

Now, if you kill these people as one man, then the nations will have heard of your fame, of which have heard of your fame will speak, saying, because Yahweh was not able to bring these people to the land which he swore to give them. And therefore, he killed them in the wilderness. And now I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as you have spoken, saying Yahweh is long suffering and abundant in mercy.

He's quoting what God had said to him on the mountain there when God declared his name to Moses on that earlier occasion. Why don't you just be the way you said you were when you said the Lord is long suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation.

Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. In other words, you've been you've shown compassion and grace for them till now. This is not the right time to stop doing that.

If you destroy them, as you say. Then it's going to give you a bad reputation, because everybody in the land of Canaan knows about what you did in Egypt. They know about the cloud and the pillar.

They know that you're visibly leading these people. And now if you kill them here, they'll just assume that you did that because you decide you couldn't conquer Canaan for them. And you don't want them thinking that.

So Moses, as before, pleads with God on the basis of God's reputation and God being and Moses is concerned about God's reputation. Before the people, then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word, but truly, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have put me to the test now these 10 times. And have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it.

But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully. I will bring into the land where he went and his descendants shall inherit it. Now, you'd expect him to mention Joshua, too, but he doesn't.

But he does later. In verse 30, where he says this again, is predicting everyone's going to die, they says, except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh and Joshua, the son of Nun. So sometimes Caleb is mentioned alone, other times Joshua is mentioned with him, but both of those men survived.

Now, the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley. Tomorrow, turn and move out into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea. In other words, avoid the Amalekites, avoid the Canaanites.

Don't go into don't go into the land there. Just move on back toward the Red Sea the way you came, God said. So we're going to turn away and go back, not to Egypt, but just back into the wilderness.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who murmur against me? I have heard the murmuring which the children of Israel murmur against me. Say to them, As I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so will I do to you. The carcasses of you who have murmured against me shall fall in this wilderness.

If I'm going to do what you said, where they say that, you said it in verse two. If only we had died in the wilderness, he said, OK, well, that's what you said. That's what I'm going to do.

Your carcasses are going to fall in the wilderness. All of you who were numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above, except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh and Joshua, the son of Nun. You shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you to dwell in.

But your little ones whom you said would be victims, and they had said that when they're grumbling in verse three. They said, why is the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword that our wives and children would become victims? He said, well, you were worried about your children becoming victims. Don't worry about that.

The ones that you thought would be victims, I will bring in and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness and your sons shall shepherd, shall be shepherds in the wilderness for 40 years. And bear the brunt of your infidelity until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness.

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, 40 days for each day, you should bear your guilt one year, namely 40 years. And you shall know my rejection. Now, it really turned out to be only 38 more years.

So he counted the almost two years that were behind them as or at least portions of two years behind them as already time served on this sentence. That's going to be 40 years altogether they'd be in the wilderness. He says, you shall know my rejection.

Boy, that's something I wouldn't want to ever know. God's rejection, you know. The fact that God can reject people once they were his people is a frightening thing, because no matter who else rejects you, if you've got God on your side, you know, anyone knows who has God.

That's the only consolation in the world sometimes is that, well, I've got God. I don't have anything else. I've got God.

But if he rejects you, there's really nothing left. Can't imagine anything more fearful than to feel rejected by God. I, the Lord, have spoken this, I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me.

In this wilderness, they shall be consumed and there they shall die. That they'll be consumed in the wilderness sounds a little bit like chapter 13, verse 32, where they said that the land of Canaan devours its inhabitants. It's a land that devours its inhabitants.

Well, you don't want to go into that land because it devours its inhabitants. You're going to be devoured in this land, in the wilderness. It's going to consume you.

You're going to die here. And the men who Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation murmur against him by bringing the bad report of the land. Those very men who brought the evil report about the land died by the plague before the Lord.

Some plague that God put upon all 10 of them. But Joshua, the son of Nun and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, remained alive of the men who went to spy out the land. So God spared them, of course.

God considered these men to have, well, they put a stumbling block before the children of Israel. And by bringing a bad report. Now, the report they brought that they were killed for, they weren't killed for reporting that there were giants in the land or that the cities were big.

Because that was true. There's no reason they couldn't say so. But they were judged for saying.

In chapter 13, verse 31, we are not able to go up against the people for they're stronger than we. It's one thing to point out they're strong and large and powerful, nothing to say we can't beat them. And that's where Joshua and Caleb differed.

Because Caleb said in verse 30, we are well able to overcome the land. And Joshua and Caleb both in chapter 14 said, if the Lord delights in us, he'll bring us into this land and give it to us. And it says they said that the Canaanites, their protection has departed from them and they're bred to us in verse 9. So Caleb and Joshua didn't deny that there are big cities and big people.

They just made it very clear that God can deliver them into our hands. So there's no reason to to be afraid. Anyway, we have them, therefore, rebelling against God.

Now, they're going to try to change God's mind here in verse 39. Moses told these words to all the children of Israel and the people mourned greatly and they decided to change their mind. They decided to go ahead and try to take the land rather than die in the wilderness.

The wilderness was not a fun place to be. They'd rather take their chances now by going into Canaan, but it's too late. So as they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain saying, here we are.

And we'll go to the place which the Lord has promised, for we have sinned. Now, it's good to say we've sinned when you've sinned, but it's sometimes too late to say that. When Saul was told to destroy all the Amalekites, but he saved some of the sheep and he saved Agag the king and Samuel, the prophet, confronted him.

Saul kept denying that he had done anything wrong. And he said, well, it wasn't really me anyway. It was the people we saved these best sheep to offer as a sacrifice to the Lord.

That's not a bad thing. And finally, Samuel said. You have rejected the word of the Lord, therefore, God has rejected you from being king.

And when Saul heard that, he said, I've sinned, you know, please pray for me. But it was too late. God had rejected him and Samuel said, no, God has rejected you because you've rejected the word of the Lord.

But sometimes the person says he's sinned, but it's a little late. It's after he's suffered or heard a judgment that he's not happy. You know, Pharaoh said he had sinned a few times, too, in the course of those plagues that came upon him.

But he wasn't repentant. Judas said, I have sinned, I've betrayed innocent blood. And they went out and hanged himself.

There are people who admit that they've sinned, but it's too late and it's not true repentance. And here they say, OK, we've sinned now, God should let us take the land again. Then Moses said, now, why do you transgress the command of the Lord? For this will not succeed.

Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are before you there. And you shall fall by the sword because you have turned away from the Lord.

The Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark, excuse me, nevertheless, the ark of the covenant nor Moses departed from the camp.

So they didn't take the ark with them and Moses didn't go with them. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the mountain, came down and attacked them and drove them back as far as Hormat. So the lesson here is obey God before he changes his mind.

They when they decided they couldn't take the land and God said, OK, then I'm not going to let you. They said, well, wait, wait, wait. Let's let's think about this again.

I think we're ready now. We don't want to die in the wilderness here. And Moses, no, it's too late now.

God has changed the plan. He's changed the decree. We're going to go with his present decree.

You can't cash in on an old obsolete promise because you like it better than what has come since then. I sometimes think about this with reference to the nation of Israel now. Some people think that it's a great thing that the people of Israel might rebuild their temple and and they might become worshippers of God again in Israel.

Jerusalem might become a religious nation again. Israel might become a religious nation and worship the true God, according to the old covenant. But you see.

They broke the covenant. And they had the opportunity, God said, to make it right, but they didn't, and so he made a new covenant. And now the new covenant has come, the old ones obsolete, so they can't come back to the old one.

It's not available. God has a new plan. If Israelites want to become worshippers of God, they have to come according to the new plan, the new covenant.

They can't come back on the terms of the old covenant just because their ancestors were unfaithful to it and they now want to be faithful to it. It's too late for that one. That was gone.

And like this, God had made one promise to them, they rejected that. And so he made another plan and now they want the old one again, but it's gone. That promise is gone to them, it's only to their children now.

And so they go ahead and try to fight a battle. I don't know how many of these troops went out, but they were defeated and they found out that they were going to have to, in fact, wander in the wilderness. After all, God was not with them any longer in the project of going to conquer Canaan.

I would point out that this particular rebellion against God was remembered by God as referred to as the provocation. And in Psalm 95, which is, of course, quoted in Hebrews fairly extensively in Hebrews three and four. It says in Psalm 95 in the middle of verse seven, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

As in the rebellion, as referring to the story we just read, the rebellion or the testing, actually. Do not harden your hearts, says in the rebellion, and as in a day of the trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they proved me, though they saw my work. For 40 years, I was grieved with that generation and said it is the people who go astray in their hearts.

They do not know my ways, so I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. And enter my rest means or at least at one level means enter into Canaan. The writer of Hebrews points out that that has another level of meaning, too, because he said that that rest was more than just Canaan, but it's God's rest that we have to enter into.

But because of this example here, the writer of Hebrews says that we need to make sure we don't make the same mistake of failing to enter into his rest through lack of faith. Chapter 15. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land you are to inhabit, which I'm giving you and you make an offering by fire to the Lord, a burnt offering or sacrifice.

To fulfill a vow or as a free will offering or in your appointed feasts to make a sweet aroma to the Lord from the herd of the flock, then he who presents his offering to the Lord shall bring a grain offering of one tenth of an ephah, a fine flour mixed with one fourth of the hint of oil and one fourth of the hint of wine as a drink offering you shall prepare with the burnt offering or the sacrifice for each lamb. Now, what this is simply saying is when you bring your burnt offering, your animal burnt offerings, you have to accompany them with grain offerings. And this is telling how much if you're offering is a lamb.

You bring a tenth of an ephah flour with it and a quarter each and a quarter hen each of oil and wine. Then he says, if it's a ram in verses six and seven, then you increase the amount of those things. It's instead of one tenth of a flour to tenth ephah flour, burning verse six and instead of a fourth of a hen of oil and wine, it's a third of a hen each of oil and wine.

Then in verses eight and ten or eight through ten. Same information only when they offer a bowl, the bigger the animal, the larger the amounts of flour. This time they got to bring three tenths of an ephah flour and a half hen each of oil and wine.

And that's what verses one through ten cover, just how much grain and wine and oil. They have to provide as a grain offering with these burnt offerings. Verse 11, thus it shall be done for each young bull, for each ram and for each lamb or young goat.

According to the number that you prepare, so you shall do with everyone according to their number. All who are native born shall do these things in this manner in presenting an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord. And if a stranger sojourns with you or whoever is among you throughout your generations and would present an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord, just as you do, so shall he do.

One ordinance shall be for you of the congregation and for the stranger who sojourns with you an ordinance forever throughout your generations as you are. So shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one custom shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.

Now, it seems to me like the stranger would be, as I said, a Gentile. And so these statements make it very clear that God doesn't make things harder on Gentiles than Jews. Gentiles and Jews could come to God on the same terms.

It's just that the Gentiles didn't in very large numbers. The Jews were required to circumcise their children on the eighth day. Gentiles didn't do that.

But if a Gentile wanted to do that, if a Gentile wanted to become a Jew, they could. A foreigner could worship God on the same terms that a Jew could. It didn't matter what his nationality was.

Of course, he had to be circumcised, but that was the terms the Jews had to be, too. And so we see that God never really was a racist. God never really did set special store by someone because they had Jewish blood in them.

But rather, if they followed the covenant, if they circumcised, if they followed the rules of the covenant, then they were acceptable, whether they were a native born Jew or a stranger from elsewhere living among them. Again, the Lord spoke to Moses saying in verse 17 and 18, speak to the children of Israel and say to them when you come into the land to which I bring you. Then it will be when you eat of the bread of the land that you shall offer up a heave offering to the Lord, you shall offer up a cake of the first of your ground meal as a heave offering as a heave offering of the threshing floor.

So shall you offer it up of the first of the ground of the ground meal. You should give to the Lord a heave offering throughout your generations. Then it goes into the law of the sin offering, which has already been told before.

We don't really have to go over it again in the first chapters of Leviticus, especially in chapters five and six. It talks about the sin offerings. This talks about them again and basically gives the same kind of information as we got before.

The main emphasis of it here is the unintentionality of the sins. And verse 22 says that and the word unintentional is used again and again and again throughout this narrative. So it's though it's giving the same ritual of the sin offering.

It's emphasizing more here than previously that this is about unintentional sins. For example, you find the word unintentional verse 22. You find it in verse 25.

You find it in verse 26, the word unintentionally in verse 27, again, unintentionally in verse 28. You find it more than once. The priest shall make atonement for a person who sins unintentionally when he sins unintentionally before the Lord.

And then verse 29, who sins unintentionally. Now, it's true that in the earlier legislation of the sin offering, it had been mentioned that it was for unintentional sin. But here it's obvious that the word unintentional is like a mantra.

It's like mentioned again and again and again in order to contrast it with verse 30 and 31. But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native born or a stranger, that one brings reproach to the Lord on the Lord. And he shall be cut off from among his people because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment.

That person should be completely cut off. His guilt should be upon him. So that's different than unintentional sins.

If you send presumptuously. Presumptuously would mean literally in the Hebrew, it's the phrase with a high hand. It's just an idiom that means boldly, boldly and deliberately.

In other words, if a person rebels against God, many people who are not seeking to rebel against God send out of weakness or out of ignorance. Many things that we have done, we later learned they were sins when we read the scripture and realized that they were sins. We didn't know it or because we learned more facts of the case.

We realized that the thing that we were involved in was something that contradicts or is in violation of something we would know to be wrong if we'd known more about the situation at the time. We realized we've sinned or we even know that it's sin at the time. But we are although we desire not to sin, we're weak and we succumb.

And that is all in the category of unintentional sin. The presumptuous and the high handed sin is actually outright rebellion against God. And there is a difference.

It's hard for us when we actually sin to make that distinction in our minds, because we are aware when we sin that we have sinned and it's a hard time, hard, hard for us to convince ourselves that we were unintentional about it. But the fact is, intentionality has to do with the your disposition toward God in general. And someone who rebels against God is in a different category than a Christian.

A Christian sends out of weakness, out of foolishness, out of ignorance. But a Christian doesn't sin intentionally. That is, they don't want to become a rebel against God.

They don't mean to alienate themselves from God. Those who do were to be put out of Israel, separated, cut off from the people, which generally means to be put to death. Verse 32, now, while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.

This would obviously be a Hebrew man. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation. They put him under guard because it had not been explained what should be done to him.

Then the Lord said to Moses, the man must surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. So the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones and he died.

This is very much like that story in Leviticus about the man who the half Israelite man who was striving and he blasphemed God and they weren't sure what to do about him. So they brought him to Moses and God told him to kill him. And so they did.

It's a very similar story in both cases. Somebody profaned the sacred, they profaned the sacred name of God and blasphemy in the first case. Here, the sacred Sabbath was profaned.

Now, it seems in both cases extreme to us to stone someone to death for something like that. And that's because we live in a pluralistic society. People have freedom of religion.

They have freedom to reject Christianity. They have freedom to reject Christian ceremonies. They don't have to keep any day holy.

They can be an atheist and have all the rights of an American citizen. There's no there's no requirement that people be godly. That was not true in Israel.

Israel was not a pluralistic society. It was a covenant people. They had agreed to be that.

And God had chosen them to be that, and therefore they were different from other people and they had to do certain things different. And there's hardly anything God had emphasized more repeatedly in the law than keep the Sabbath. Not only was it in the Ten Commandments, it got mentioned again and again and again and again and again.

Almost every time legislation was given, they'd throw it. And don't forget my Sabbath. And so there is absolutely no excuse for someone who is Jewish to not know that he's supposed to rest on the Sabbath.

And there he is out gathering sticks. And so he was put to death, made an example of. And these things, you know, again.

They they kind of go against our our modern sentiments, but only because our sentiments are so humanistic. We're so much on the side of people instead of on the side of God. And when there's a controversy between God and people, we always kind of are sympathetic toward people because we're people.

We're like them. But our sympathies have got to be on God's side. And people profane God and rebel against God and so forth.

Death is what they deserve. And if we're not sympathetic to that, it's only because we we would not like to think we deserve death for the things we've done against God. What we do.

The way to finish death. Now, the last part of this chapter is a strange little rule that God made for the Jews, and that is that they're supposed to have a blue border and tassels on their garment. Apparently, every Jew was to wear these.

It says again, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel, tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put blue thread in the tassels of the on the corners. And you shall have the tassels that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that you may not follow the harlotry, which is in your own heart and your own eyes. And to which your own eyes, to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, excuse me, and that you may remember to do all my commandments and to be holy for your God.

I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord, your God. Now, this business about putting these tassels on the garments to remind you to keep the law is perhaps given at this point because the suggestion is that this guy, this Israelite, was just kind of forgetting.

Kind of forgetting it was the Sabbath. You're not allowed to forget that. You're supposed to remember the Sabbath, not to forget the Sabbath.

The law was to remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. This man might have forgotten it was Saturday. He might have forgotten the law.

It's possible some people are just that stupid. In this case, people that stupid in Israel, they were removed from the gene pool. Don't want that kind of stupidity spreading.

You can't remember one day a week to keep it holy, then you're mentally deficient and we don't want more of that being bred in this community. Give that man the Darwin Award for being weeded out of the gene pool for his stupidity. And so to prevent people from being so forgetful, God says, let's let's give you guys a daily reminder.

When you put on your clothes, you have these blue tassels hanging from them. What's that for? Well, that's exactly what you're supposed to ask. What are those for? Oh, yeah.

That remind me about God's laws. When you look at them, it says it'll remind you. But you'll remember.

So you're walking down the street and you're forgetting the law of God, you look down to this tassel dangling down here on your shawl. And what the heck was that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, the laws of God.

Now, there's nothing about tassels that in themselves would remind people of the law, except that they're that's what they're for. And it's an unusual thing. It's a special style on their clothing.

Other people don't wear those. And when they notice their tassels hanging, they say, oh, yeah, that reminds me. I'm supposed to keep all the laws of God.

And so God gives it in their clothing. You know, God dictates what they eat, what days they work, what they wear. God is the master over all the areas of life to the Jew and to the Christian, too, as a result, because we're the new Israel.

But we don't have to wear the tassels. But we should remember what Christ has said to do because we're supposed to do it just like they were supposed to. Moses said, well, we'll stop there in chapter 16.

We come to the rebellion of Korah. And that's an exciting story.