The Cost of Disobedience

I’m going to begin with reading our passage for this morning, which is a little bigger chunk of scripture than I normally preach on, but it is a long narrative so I will read the whole thing and then we will get into finding some lessons in it. In case you missed the last week or two, the sermons are available to listen to at our website, oasisfl.org, and since each sermon in this sermon series will be building off the previous lessons, it may be helpful for you to listen to any you have missed as well as check out the blog on the website, where I will be offering some follow-ups and previews.

As a quick recap of where this passage falls, Moses is addressing the people of Israel. These are the people who were left, after 40 years in the desert place, the older generation had passed away. They had not been allowed to enter the promised land because of their lack of faith. Moses is recalling for them part of the history that happened since the exodus of Israel from Egypt.

Last week, we saw that Moses recalled how he appointed leaders. We know this was based partly on the advice of his father-in-law Jethro; Moses asked the people to select wise, understanding, and experienced men, that he would appoint as heads. There were to be judges at all levels of the society, who were to be fair, and when they could not handle a case, they were to bring it to Moses. Now in our passage this morning, Moses continues his speech to the people:

Deuteronomy 1:19–46 ESV

“Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh-barnea. And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’ Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’ The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. And they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out. And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.’ “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go. “And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’ Even with me the Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’ “Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. And the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’ So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the Lord and presumptuously went up into the hill country. Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. So you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.

In the first few verses, we see that the people had gone through “That great and terrifying wilderness”. In my studies, I read that the landscape there truly is difficult. There are sharp rocks, there are snakes, it is not a nice place. Compared to southern Florida, it would be a very different place. No flowering trees or palms would be found there, no mango trees or avocado trees, no star fruit. Just barren land with lots of difficulties and pain.

But through this land, the people of Israel went, and made it to the place where they were to enter into the promised land. And Moses tells the people, Deut1.21

Deuteronomy 1:21 ESV

See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

After all the miracles the people had seen, the mighty hand of God in the plagues of Egypt, and the plundering of the Egyptian people who feared God and gave to the Israeli people all their jewels, and after seeing the Red Sea parted, and walking through it, and looking back and seeing the army of Pharoah, horse and rider thrown into the sea, and after seeing God’s pillar of fire and his cloud to guide them, and after seeing Moses return from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, after all of these amazing miracles, their faith must have been strong, they must have been ready to trust God and Moses his servant with their very lives, right?

Not exactly. Now the people want to have a team go and make sure the land is good.

Deuteronomy 1:22 ESV

Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’

Normally, this would not be much of a problem. When the US bought the Louisiana Purchase, which more than doubled the area of this nation, they sent Lewis and Clark to explore the land, to map it our, to make a report of what resources were out there and what obstacles. But this was not the Louisiana Purchase. This was the Promised Land. Who promised the land? The true and dependable, never failing, creator God. So the people asking for scouts to go out after all they had witnessed about God’s power and faithfulness, may be a mark of disbelief. And we will see that disbelief is really the sin that kept them from the promised land, just as disbelief keeps people from receiving eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Now, Moses doesn’t put all the blame on the people here. He also thought it was ok

Deuteronomy 1:23 ESV

The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe.

and God had also given his stamp of approval for this mission as we see

Numbers 13:1–2 ESV

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”

The command had been given to go in and possess, but God also allowed this to happen, that the spies would be sent in. They went in, and discovered that the land was really good. It was fruitful. This spies even said “it is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us”

Well, then, let’s go! It looks good, God has kept his promise, let’s go. Well, no, They would not go

Deuteronomy 1:26 ESV

“Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

And here we being to see their sin compounded. It would have been bad enough if these people who had seen the power of God were scared, it would have been bad enough if they wavered and had uncertainty. Now they compound their sin by murmuring.

Deuteronomy 1:27–28 ESV

And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’

God had proven himself to the people through the miraculous sings they saw, he proved to them that he had brought them to a good land. But they either do not believe God can fight with them or they are too lazy to go out and fight, whatever their various reasons are, they continued their rebellion by murmuring. This murmuring if so sinful, not so much because they don’t believe Moses, they don’t believe God.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume Deuteronomy 1:19–46

II. He shows them how fair they stood for Canaan at that time, v. 20, 21. He told them with triumph, the land is set before you, go up and possess it. He lets them see how near they were to a happy settlement when they put a bar in their own door, that their sin might appear the more exceedingly sinful. It will aggravate the eternal ruin of hypocrites that they were not far from the kingdom of God and yet came short, Mk. 12:34.

Mark 12:34 ESV

And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Now, this lesson had been used by some in the church throughout history to say that rebellion agains ta leader in the church is wrong, and it is pushed even further to say you can never question the authority of a pastor or leader in the church. But note that the problem really isn't so much regarding their trust of Moses, although God had indeed clearly been affirmed by God to be their leader, the real offense was not believing God himself.

I don’t want anyone to make a career of criticizing me by any means. But asking questions of leadership is not a punishable offense in the church, and many churches have ultimately fallen because the culture of the church was to protect the leader at all costs. Don’t question him, don’t criticize, just do what he says. This is the wrong application of this passage. It is not saying that at all. The reason The people were guilty of not doing what Moses said is because what Moses said was the direct command of God, and no pastor today has this same authority.

However, when it comes to God’s Word, if the pastor is preaching it, you do have a responsibility to obey it, not because of the pastor who preaches but because it is God’s Word. Maybe you don’t like some decision the pastor or the board made. It is fair to ask questions, so long as it isn’t in a rebellious spirit. I am by no means perfect, I will make mistakes, I will make decisions that frustrate someone, I get that. I’m not bothered if you disagree. And I can still love and get along with people I disagree with on certain things. But when it comes to God’s Word, I will not compromise, and you need to obey God, not man.

So I throw that in to the sermon, because sometimes it is important to point out what a particular passage is not saying, and this passage is not saying that all church leaders are like Moses, with the authority he had to command. However, teachers and preachers and pastors can and should tell the people in their care what God’s Word says, not twisting it and using it for spiritual manipulation, but for the building of the church, and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.

So the people are afraid of the Amorites, and their hearts have melted, so they sat around in their tents murmuring. How frustrating this was for Moses! And yet,

Still Moses encourages the people, he reminds them that the Lord will fight for them

Deuteronomy 1:29–31 ESV

Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’

He reminds them of God’s provision and protection. They have seen in many ways how God has taken care of them.

Deuteronomy 1:32–33 ESV

Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.

Now we are about to see the cost of this rebellion.

Deuteronomy 1:34–36 ESV

“And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’

Only 2 men of that Generation end up going into the promised land, Joshua and Caleb. Caleb was one of the spies who said they could take the land. It is curious to me what ever happened to the other spy. Joshua would go in because he was Moses’ faithful assistant, and the people needed a good strong leader to lead them into the promised land. Every other person in that generation would die in the desert, never seeing the promised land. Their children and grandchildren, who were not considered to be accountable for this rebellion would go in. The general consensus I found was that anyone from about 20 years of age and younger at this time would go in.

Caleb was also to be given the land that he had spied out, and the completion of this promise is found in the book of Joshua chapter 14.

Moses himself would not go in:

Deuteronomy 1:37 ESV

Even with me the Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there.

Now, Moses was not allowed into the promised land for the same reason as the rest of them. We see the reason Moses did not go in in Num20.2-13

Numbers 20:2–13 ESV

Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.

So Moses also would not go in, but Joshua would replaced Moses as leader of the people and lead them in.

Deuteronomy 1:38 ESV

Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.

Interestingly, the people had given as part of the reason they would not go in, the safety of their children. But in the end, it would be those children who would receive the land:

Deuteronomy 1:39–40 ESV

And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’

Now the people are starting to understand what their rebellion has cost them. So now they say, OK, OK, we will go and fight! They have heard the sentence for their crime, and now they want to plead with their judge that they will go do the right thing now. It’s like the employee who the boss has warned again and again, be sure to complete your work. The boss gave a verbal warning a written warning, still the employee didn’t complete the job. Finally the boss says, you are fired. Now the employee says, I’m going to do the job now!

The boss says “it’s too late”. The employee doesn’t listen and refuses to leave and goes to do the job anyway, even though they have already been fired, and now the boss has them arrested for trespassing. This is a somewhat weak illustration of what happens next:

Deuteronomy 1:41–46 ESV

“Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. And the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’ So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the Lord and presumptuously went up into the hill country. Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. So you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.

There are a couple of final lessons here. One is that confession does not necessarily remove the consequences of the sin. If that were the case, we would never learn any lessons. The other lesson is that if you missed your opportunity for obedience, you may not get that same opportunity again. Upon realizing the very grave consequences they faced, they said, ok, ok, now we will go up, we will now obey the Lord’s Command. However, it was too late. The opportunity had passed. So what would have been the right thing for them to do?

They were missing a key ingredient. Godly sorrow or grief. You see, there is a difference between a worldly sorrow or grief and a godly grief is that a godly grief is actually a gift of God. Worldly grief means, I do not like the consequences, so I am sorry I did that. The heart is not grieved, the flesh is, it is a sadness that some comfort is going to be lost because of the sin. Godly grief is a broken heart over sin, not so much because of the consequences of it, but because of a love for God and the feeling of failing him, sinning against him, breaks the heart.

Paul wrote how he had grieved the Corinthian church with one of his letters, but he rejoiced that they grieved, because their grief was a genuine sign of their faithfulness.

2 Corinthians 7:8–13 ESV

For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

Confession does not necessarily remove the consequences of sin. These Israelites reacted to the news of the penalty for their sin, and this was a worldly grief. They grieved over the consequences, not over their disobedience. But they had missed the opportunity to obey this particular command, to go up and possess the land. Rather than having true grief and saying, What then should we do, as those who responded to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, they wanted to try and do the thing they had missed the window of opportunity to do.

And that is the other lesson. Christians miss opportunities for obedience all the time. I have, you have, we all have. We know it, and we regret that. You can’t always go back and do that same thing. If I hurt someone in High School because of my words or actions, I may not ever be able to undo that; Not only do we lack a time machine to go back and do things better, we cannot undo the potential years of pain we caused someone else because of our carelessness. We can never know how our harsh words may have seared someone in a way we never understood or maybe even intended. So what do we do?

Well, first off, we need a godly sorrow over our sin. And sometimes, we don’t feel it. Often, our sorrow is more wordly. But we can continue to ask God to make our hearts sensitive. We can ask Him to help us hate our sin more, and desire holiness more. We can ask Him to reveal to us our failures and show us the true consequences of our words and actions.

So what do we do, when we realize we missed an opportunity for obedience? We must ask God to humble us, to help us to have true, godly sorrow for our sins. And if the opportunity has passed us by, we ask God to reveal to us a new opportunity for obedience, for growth. It is possible to make a serious error in disobeying God, and to repent fully, but yet have to suffer the consequences. This happens to people all the time. And sometimes people have consequences that last a lifetime. And it would be easy to think that isn’t fair, they repented, why can’t they get past the consequnces?

The answer is both simple and complicated. The simple answer is that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, so whether we see it or not, he is using those consequences in our lives to grow us to be more like Him, and when we become more like Him, we are doing His kingdom work. The more complicated answer is that how this is all working out, sometimes only God knows. We may see hints of what he is doing through the consequences we endure because of our sin, we may know we are growing and maturing, but only God really knows what each trial and consequence is doing to help us grow.

So there is a lot to learn from these Israelites. Years ago, I would read passages like this, and shake my head, and wonder why they didn’t get it. The more I grow in the Lord, the more I realize how much like them I am. How much my own tendency is to disobey the word of God.

Maybe I understand a little better what Paul meant, when he said, “by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.

We all live with consequences of disobedience in our lives, but by the grace of God, we are what we are, and with his grace, we are able to know that in the end, he will complete the good work he began in each of us, and will continue to prepare his bride for the day when he brings her home to him.

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