this evening to the book of Numbers chapter 14. I'm doing tonight what I've heard called in Northern Ireland a one-off. A message that is not part of a series. We have been looking and looked at a sampling of the miracles of Christ in the evenings, in the fall, and early winter. But I want this evening just to read together, not the whole, but a good portion of chapter 14. So I urge you to give attention to the reading. It's a lengthy reading. But let us hear the Lord's Word together. Numbers 14, beginning in verse 1. Just to set the context, this is at Kadesh Barnea. The 12 spies have been sent into the land and come back and bring their report of the faithful report of the goodness, the plenty of the land, and yet their evil report of the 10 spies, their confession or their opinion that they can't take the land, that the land is inhabited by people that are too great, too strong. And they were like grasshoppers in their sight. And it is at this place that we find, I say, the context of our reading. And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried. And the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole congregation said unto them, Would God we had died in the land of Egypt. Would God we had died in this wilderness. And wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, let us return into Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord. Neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their defense is departed from them. The Lord is with us. Fear them not. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. The glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? And how long will it be ere they believe Me? For all the signs which I have showed among them, I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they. And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, for Thou broughtest up this people in Thy might from among them, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. For they have heard how the Lord art among His people, that Thou, Lord, art seen face to face, and that Thy cloud standeth over them, and that Thou goest before them by daytime in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore hath he slain them in the wilderness. And now I beseech thee, Let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty. visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.' And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word. But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. because all those men which have seen My glory and My miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice, surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it. But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went, and his seed shall possess it. Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley. Tomorrow turn you and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel which they murmur against me, saying to them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you. Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of you according to your whole number from 20 years old and upward, which have murmured against me. Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, Your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness 40 years and bear your whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days, each day for a year in which you search the land, even 40 days, each day for a year shall you bear your iniquities, even 40 years. And you shall know my breach of promise. I, the Lord, have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation that are gathered together against me in this wilderness. They shall be consumed, and there they shall die. And the men which Moses sent to search the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land died by the plague before the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still. And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly." Well, in reading there, again, we trust the Lord to bless the public reading of His Word. Let's bow our heads and our hearts together. Our Heavenly Father, tonight we come and we have read a sober, a most sober portion of Your Word. You speak in the New Testament Scriptures of this generation, and that You swore unto them in Your wrath that they would not enter into Your rest. and the refrain is repeated that he could not enter in because of unbelief. Lord, help us to know something of these things written before, written for our learning as Your Word describes. And bless our thoughts upon it tonight, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. I was impressed this week while reading this portion of Scripture I was more impressed, or most impressed I say, with the extraordinary intercession that Moses brings on behalf of Israel. And when you think of that, his intercession is all the more remarkable when you consider its context. You consider everything that surrounds it. When you consider the unbelievable nature and extent of the sin of the children of Israel. I mean, we're breaking into the stories we said in a one-off message. But the sins of the people since their departure from Egypt have been many and they've been great. I remember years ago when I was preaching through the life of Moses and we came to this portion of Scripture, I entitled the message there, Unbelievable Unbelief. Because that's exactly what we see in the children of Israel at this point. But I say his intercession is remarkable as well, not merely for the nature and the extent of the sin of the children of Israel, but you think of the personal discomforts that had been brought to Moses by this people. As the Lord speaks to him in his wrath and the prospect of judging this people, of disinheriting this people, and from him making another nation, It's remarkable, I say, that Moses intercedes on their behalf. You think of the nature of God's threatenings against Israel and for Moses. So I just tonight want, in very few moments, to consider something of the portion tonight, very simply. But first, and we've already begun to rehearse this, simply just Israel's sin. I say it's unbelievable unbelief. You think of this nation so singularly blessed. We're looking in the mornings and we'll be looking in the story and life of Joseph of Israel's entrance into Egypt. The provision that God made for them there. The preservation, the salvation of the nation that He made there. How He prospered them and they multiplied and became a mighty and numerous people. They were the recipients of grace. Unmerited favor had followed them. God Himself put a redemption between them and the Egyptians. Think of the plagues that afflicted Egypt and yet Goshen is spared. How clearly God's hand is on display and yet these people have hearts filled with unbelief. You think of how they came out of Egypt. They were delivered at the Red Sea. And that remarkable and amazing deliverance. The song of Moses that flowed from that deliverance that we hear echoed throughout the Word even to the very end of the canon. The wonders and the glory of our God. You think of their receiving water from a stone. You think of bread provided for them daily as they go through the wilderness. You think in particular of God's presence, and that's noted here in Moses' prayer. That cloudy pillar. We've thought of this. It's a remarkable phenomenon. You think of even how it is displayed before the people. A pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. You think in the desert climate, the low humidities, we don't get to think about that or experience that much in North Carolina. High humidity, it makes the heat hotter, it makes the cold colder. And the temperature shifts are usually, although I don't think we're supposed to experience that tonight, kind of gradual. But in a dry desert climate, I was surprised to learn this as a teenager in school. It gets cold in the desert at night because all the heat of the day just escapes. And then in the day, the heat comes early and it comes long. And God's presence for them is exactly what they need in whatever circumstance they face. In the night, they need warmth. He is to them a pillar of fire. A blanket of warmth above them. The day they need protection from the heat. He's a pillar of cloud. He shields them from the sun. And this presence of God which far more even than what we've just described. Remember that cloud even at the Red Sea went forth and it appeared before them and it went behind them. It was a barrier between them and the pursuing Egyptians. God's presence among His people was known. And Moses even recounts that the people of Canaan and had heard of this abiding presence of God among His people. I remember when I was a student, I hadn't even come to my seminary days early on in undergrad days. So I began to attend the free church there in Greenville. I noted that Dr. Cairns often closed his prayers with a repeated phrase. He would say often, be the abiding portion of all your blood-bought people." And I asked him one night of where it was. I thought there's some verse I need to find. And he said, well, it's really just what you see for God throughout the Scriptures. What He is for His people. That abiding portion. And this symbol of His abiding presence Moses notes and takes note that the people of the land are aware of this as well. All of these things Show the revelation, the light, the grace that Israel has received. Israel is sinning against light. They have, as the Lord says here ten times, thus tempted Him. This is one of the portions where that cloudy pillar that is marked and the symbol of God's presence is seen in a remarkable way. We read that the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation in verse 10 or verse 9. I remember thinking of that years ago. I need to dig out that particular message. The cloud of glory. The seasons. The different circumstances we see that cloud representing. The cloud that comes at this point in Israel's history and shelters them and leads them through the wilderness. It was a blessing. And you read in particular a couple of occasions, one when the tabernacle and all of its furnishings had been built and prepared and they first erected it and the priests gather in and what do we find? That this cloud of glory that has already been with the people and leading them descends and it fills the house. And the priests can't stand to minister because the glory of the Lord is there. And you see the very same thing in the dedication of Solomon's temple. I remember reading that many years ago still in my student days and just thinking. It's when I'd been under preaching that even set before us the prospect of days of revival blessing. And heard much about that in dispensational circles. Can't be any more revivals. Well, there can be. And you think this season in which God's presence comes so tangibly among His people that the priests have to just get out of the way. Oh, for days in which God's presence would come in such a way, perhaps even in our singing, that the sermon is an afterthought and the preacher kind of just needs to get out of the way. For the Lord's blessing and presence among His people. The cloud of glory descends among God's people in revival blessing. It's another season we find with reference to this cloud. There's a particular point in Ezekiel's prophecy where Ezekiel's taken up and called to witness the cloud removing from the temple and departing. It's much like we find in the days of Samuel. The wicked sons of Eli, the priests, take the ark of God into battle without warrant. They take the symbol of God's presence against the Philistines without God's real presence. And the Philistines take the ark. Ichabod is written over the son that's born. The glory has departed. There are times when God removes His presence. Removes the glory from among His people. So the cloud departs in rebuke And there are other seasons such as the one we're reading of tonight where the cloud appears in the tabernacle or in the temple. Not in revival, but in wrath. That cloud that had put itself between Israel and the Egyptians when the Egyptians were pursuing them to slay them. And the Lord discomforts the Egyptians from the cloud. Can you imagine? After everything that Egypt has already experienced, and Pharaoh's servants have cried unto him, let them go, don't you know yet that Egypt is destroyed? And then in his wrath and the hardened nature of his heart, he calls his army to pursue them after they've let them go. They chase them up against the Red Sea. And then this fiery pillar stands between them and Israel, And it said the Lord looked upon the Egyptians out of the cloud. I don't care what kind of military training you've had, what kind of battle you've seen, it must have been such a fearful prospect. But to have the Lord's glory in that cloud appear against Israel, to have that cloud descend in wrath against their sins. That, I say, is remarkable indeed. And that is where we find Israel. And so, read with me again from verse 11. After this cloud appears in the congregation, the glory of the Lord. The Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? How long will it be ere they believe Me for all the signs which I have showed among them? I will smite them with pestilence and disinherit them and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they." Where does this put Moses? We've looked a little at Israel's sin Look with me now at Moses' intercession. This is a remarkable prayer. I dare say, I wonder what I would say or do if I were in such a situation. You think of the murmurings against Moses. All the problems that this people have brought him How personally uncomfortable. How personally angry he must have been against this people. And now God's anger is stirred against them. And the Lord brings such a threatening as this. Would you have been tempted to say, Amen, Lord? Wipe them out and let's go. That's not what Moses does. When you hear Moses as our Savior, what a prayer. What an intercession for an undeserving and wicked people. Look again. Read with me again the words. Verse 13, Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it For thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them, and they'll tell it to the inhabitants of this land. For they have heard that thou, Lord, art among this people, that thou, Lord, art seen face to face, that thy clouds standeth over them, that thou goest before them by day and time and a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire by night. Now thou shalt kill all this people as one man. then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which He sweared to Him, therefore hath He slain them in the wilderness." The first plea, the first part of Moses' petition is, Lord, what will the ungodly think? He's not thinking of, wow, of Moses is going to be pretty big. History will record all the adventures of the children of Moses, not the children of Israel. He's not thinking about that. He's thinking about Israel's God. Lord, if you do this, what will the heathen think? What will your Testimony. How can the heathen possibly interpret all of this that they have not seen? They've seen your wonders in Egypt. They've heard testimony of that. They've tangibly seen your glory and your presence in the cloud that follows and leads your people. But they won't understand this inner sin. This unbelief among this people. They probably wouldn't believe it if they heard it. It's unbelievable unbelief. But Moses is more jealous for God's name than he is for his own. Here is a remarkable petition. Lord, You can't do this. What will the ungodly think of You? You look at his second petition. Verses 17 and 18. And now I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, the Lord is longsuffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generations. I hadn't seen this, and I would certainly need to consult authorities far greater than myself. But Matthew Henry points out that in some of the quotation, which we'll reference here in a moment, that Moses uses of the previous statements of the Lord, that there's something of his unwillingness to make a full end of his people. that He will not wipe them out, but that His mercy will be known so that the generations will be preserved. Whatever it be from that question and quibble of some of the translation. He draws from two portions of Scripture in particular. It's with regard to the second commandment in Exodus 20 and verse 5. where the Lord gives that word with regard to not making and taking unto themselves any graven image. It's interesting just by the way as you look at the ten words of the moral law or the place where the moral law is, I think as the framers of our confession wisely put it, where it's summarily comprehended. There's two commands that we get so hammered about in these modern days making us legalists with regard to images and with regard to the Lord's Day. Have you ever seen the Ten Commandments just charted out and printed? The second and the fourth are the beefiest, as it were. They have explanation added to them. It's because of the inherent spirituality of those commands that they're explained and made clear to the people. But it's in these words, God is long-suffering, of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, Moses pleads not only, Lord, what will the ungodly think? But he says, Lord, how have You described Yourself before? How have You shown Yourself to be? You have said of Yourself that You're long-suffering, that You're of great mercy, that You forgive iniquity and transgression. And here we know is the strongest place to be when we would argue in prayer, holding up the Word. Moses asked the Lord, isn't this true of you? And if we could try and discern a third petition in this intercession that he makes. If you look in v. 19, "'Pardon I beseech Thee the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy mercy, and as Thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.'" What will the ungodly think? Lord, how have You described The Lord had forgiven before. Perhaps could have argued, as you look at the incident at the Golden Calf, He'd forgiven even greater. There it was an idolatrous worship. Here it's rebellion and unbelief. But I say, what an example of prayer. more concerned for the glory of God's name than his own. More ready to pray for such a people that have been a pain to him in addition to their unbelief, their unfaithfulness to God. And yet he finds it in his heart to pray for them. Moses' intercession here is great and it's exemplary. But lastly, we see God's answer. And God answers Moses' petition. Verse 20, the Lord said, I've pardoned according to Your Word. Moses' prayer is successful. God will not disinherit the people. He does not destroy them all as one man in a day. Moses' prayer is answered. His gospel pleas have been heard. But then we see how the answer will play out. God will be faithful. God will not destroy the nation of Israel and make a nation of Moses. But the generation that has so multiplied its unbelief, its murmurings, and its sin against God. They will be judged for their sin. The nation will be chastened for their actions and their unbelief. And how remarkable the Lord's answer is. He is being merciful. He's sparing the nation. But He's not sparing the unbelievers. The very thing that they made their prayer. Wood to God, we had died in the wilderness. You ever think of where unbelief leads you in your thinking? Wood to God, we had died in the wilderness. Wood to God, we had died in Egypt. Let's make a captain and take ourselves back to Egypt. Turn ourselves in. Re-enlist for the captivity and slavery. The Lord answers with, can we say, an irony. You'll have what you asked of Me. Your carcasses are going to fall in this wilderness. All of you 20 years old and older, adults that have been numbered among the people, you've murmured against Me, you're worried about dying in the wilderness, in the wilderness you'll die. And your children, that you thought the Canaanites would destroy and be a prey to them. Well, they're going to be the ones to inherit the land. They're going to go in. And you're not going to go in. God, I say, gives a gracious but a chastening answer. Moses' prayer is answered. I say it is a remarkable intercession. I urge you just to read it as again one of the great prayers of the Bible. But think of how that answer came in his experience. Moses pleads for the nation not to be destroyed. Moses says, Lord, I don't want You to make a nation of Moses. I want you to bless this people. I want you to forgive this nation. And God does that in the way we see outlined. He chastens the unbelieving and will be faithful to and prosper their offspring. But in this answer, what Moses has asked for, this release that Moses has secured for the people, binds him to 40 years. The remaining third of his life in the wilderness with that now cursed and dying generation to hear their murmuring still and to serve and lead them for 40 more years. A remarkable providence A remarkable mercy, yet mingled with hardship. What an exemplary prayer. What a Gospel-centered heart. What a difficult road He's given. An answer to prayer that God would spare this people. As I said, I was just impressed this week in reading again Moses' words. How amazing it is He thus prayed for that people. How many challenges those we've tried and doubtless many, many more we've missed. Challenges for us and our hearts for the glory of God's name. The longsuffering of God with His people. and even God's help and grace for whatever difficult providences He brings to us. Let's bow our heads together. Lord, tonight we are grateful that we have Your living Word. We pray for the help of Your Spirit in applying it and gaining understanding and growing in grace and growing in our... that appeal of the Apostle that we might grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How much knowledge of His Savior, how much knowledge of His God had Moses gained as He walked with you and meditated upon your word that gave Him the grace and even the boldness to pray such a prayer as this for truly undeserving people. Lord, give us such gospel hearts in our day, and give us wisdom as we so often pray now in these perplexing times. May gospel thinking prevail in us, and may something of the calm that surrounds your throne mingle down to us. Lord, bless us as we part from one another. Do bless those of our dear ones that travel. Bring them safely home, we pray. And bless us in our homes and in our varied occupations. May we take the light of your truth and of your grace with us as we go forth. We pray these things in the worthy name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.