Numbers 15
ISRAEL’S refusal to take possession of the land is referred to by the Apostle in Hebrews 3.
“Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years.... Wherefore I was grieved with that generation,... So I sware in My wrath. They shall not enter into rest.” vv. 7-11.
Their despising the land was “the provocation.” They saw His works for forty years and were continually provoking Him.
But here at the border of the land where their complete ruin was displayed, how brightly does the faithfulness of God shine out. Those unconditional promises made to the fathers long, long before He would not forget — they must be fulfilled. At the very time when they are about to turn back and begin those long sad years in the wilderness, His thoughts are of their bright future, and He begins to speak of the time when they would enter the land. He says, “When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you...” He speaks of it as “the land of their habitations” — it was to be their permanent home. And this looks on to the coming day, far beyond the time when they would reject their Messiah, when they would be forgiven, cleansed, given a new heart, and every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree.
God sent them back into the wilderness for He had much to teach them of the evil of their own hearts and also to display the rich and wonderful grace that would meet all their sin. There were lessons to be learned there that they could never learn in the land. And surely this is for us also. We too are in the wilderness and are learning that our hearts are no better than Israel’s but we are also proving the rich grace of God and the priestly intercession of Christ.
How precious is this grace! The sin of His people cannot frustrate His purposes of love, though for a time they may have to suffer under His government. Yet in the end His mercy shall rejoice over judgment.
And this unchanging purpose of God is made known to us now in a far richer and fuller way than to Israel, to us who have better proses. How often in our unbelief and failure have we dishonored Him and yet His grace has shone the brighter all along our pathway. Has He not declared: “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father who gave them Me is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one"? John 10:28,3028And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:28)
30I and my Father are one. (John 10:30).
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... For I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:35, 38-3935Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Romans 8:35)
38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38‑39).
As we journey on may we learn to appreciate more this abounding grace.
ML-10/21/1973