I don't want to following that him up with Psalm 138 of David Thanksgiving for the Lord's favor. I will give you thanks with all my heart, I will sing praises to you before the gods. I'll bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth, for you have magnified your word according to all your name. On that day I called, you answered me. You made me bold with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth will give thanks to you, O Lord, when they have heard the words of your mouth. They will sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is exalted, yet he regards the lowly but the haughty, the arrogant he knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You'll stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me. The Lord will accomplish what concerns me. Your loving kindness, O Lord, is everlasting. Do not forsake the works of your hands. Good evening. Welcome to Fort Preston. You who are Preston City Bible Church. It's wonderful and a thrill to see you all tonight for this another opportunity to fellowship together, but more importantly, with God and his precious word. Because we recognize its value, we recognize all that we read in Psalm 119 as the scriptures attest to themselves that God, and as David has said, has magnified his word according to the glory and the exaltation of his name, which is what we'll be looking at tonight in Psalm 106. And as you know, to approach the word of God, according to the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians two requires God, the Holy Spirit, that he would be teaching spiritual things to spiritual people. Spiritual people are those who are in fellowship with God and a status quo of spirituality, which means that the word of God through the agency of God, the Holy Spirit is characterizing us. This only happens when we walk independence. on the Holy Spirit. When we yield our members of our bodies, we yield ourselves as instruments of righteousness to God. And this is the other side, the alternative to arrogance. For God calls you to this, and to resist the call to submitting to God is arrogance. That's why confession of sin goes hand in hand with the filling of the Spirit. But make no mistake, when you confess your sins, you are receiving cleansing. But you're doing so in order to be reacquainted, reestablished in fellowship and in the filling of God, the Holy Spirit. And that's the vital ministry that is your birthright as a believer in Jesus Christ in this age. So I give you a moment for silent prayer. And if you don't need to confess your sins because you have already confessed your sins, then you can make melody in your heart to the Lord or you can pray and give thanks. But here's a moment for silent prayer. Our father, we pause to reflect on your grace. the glory of your kindness, your blessings that you pour out on us. By the way, when we read that your word is exalted according to your name. your person when we read that we have these words and we can know you through them. Father, we have just received a value statement on the time that we have committed to you this hour. We recognize that we don't really have a taste or an ability to grasp this value, this infinite riches of your word or of the presence of the Holy Spirit or indeed of Jesus Christ in us, the hope of glory. But, Father, we recognize these things are true, we take them on faith, and we rejoice with joy inexpressible, looking forward to what You've called us for, which is to be with Your Son forever. And I ask that You would give us more tonight a perspective on truth and reality that You have. Give us Your perspective as we turn to Your Scriptures. I pray it in Christ's name. Amen. Psalm 106 tonight. Psalm 106, and we'll be taking up our study of Israel's lamentable failures as recorded in Psalm 106 and verse 23. As I said, verse 24, Psalm 106, 24, You know, we're closing down the study of Nehemiah, Nehemiah 9, as the longest prayer in Scripture. That long prayer is a historical recounting of Israel's failures. It is a long recounting, chronologically and successively, of the failures of Israel. And tonight, we have before us the story of Israel's failures in Psalm 106, another prayer where we see Israel recounting their failures. And this is your this is your outline of this psalm. And tonight we're in the middle. Sorry, Jim, that's a slide three. We're in the middle of the of the psalm. It's going to move pretty quickly from here. And we said this is not necessarily a really chronological The golden calf is long before Dathan and Abiram in the wilderness, and Kadesh Barnea is long after the golden calf. And yet, well, not that long, but the same year and the same couple of years. But they're out of order chronologically, and that's by intent. because the scriptures are designed by their author, by God, the Holy Spirit, and in the hearts of their human authors to communicate the truth that the Holy Spirit is going for. And tonight we have a big surprise, actually, in this historical commentary on the failure of Israel at Kadesh Barnea. This is slide 77. Failure of Israel at Kadesh Barnea. You can read about the story of Israel's failure in Numbers 13 and 14. 13 generally has the story of the failure and 14 has the judgment, the telling of the judgment of God because of their failure. And let me summarize very quickly. God told them to enter the land and to conquer it. told Israel to land conquer it. They sent a reconnaissance, which is always a wise practice in any military event. A wise practice to send a reconnaissance. It says in your Bible under the heading 12 spies. They sent one from every tribe and they went in and they confirmed God's promises that there was a land flowing with milk and honey. a land that was rich in resources, and they brought back some of the wonderful resources with their report. But they also brought something else back. They brought back an enemy reconnaissance and intelligence brief that said, we cannot fight these people. They are too strong for us. We would be like grasshoppers in their sight. And you know the story, 10 of the spies, 10 of the scouts who went to reconnoiter came back with a doom and gloom message of pessimism. We cannot do what God has told us to do. And notice it's we cannot do what God has said we could do because he told us to do it. We know better than the word of God is what they come back with, and those 10 scouts, are standing as a majority against the two, Caleb and Joshua. And Caleb and Joshua say, let's go now. The Lord has given it to us. We can conquer them because he has promised us and he's with us. Well, the ten convince Israel and the two do not convince Israel. And so Israel weeps and mourns and moans and and they grumble. And then God judges them for their grumbling because it's really some strong grumbling. It's we wish we had died in Egypt. Let's kill Moses or get rid of Moses and hire someone else to take us back to Egypt. And then they throw the famous children defense. You have led us out here and our children to kill us in the wilderness. And the anger of the Lord burns against them and says, OK, your children will enter the land, but you won't. Forty years you're going to roam around this desert until you all die. Then I'll let your children enter and that's what happened. That's why an 11-day journey ended up taking 40 years and that's numbers 13 and 14 and very thumbnail sketch summary for takeaways from this commentary that we will discuss have tonight. I want you to get the four takeaways as we approach them. Not always that I will give you the outline of the application before we get into the actual text, but I want you to see these unfold as I have seen them unfold. And so I'll give you the I'll give you the summary up front. Four principles in the story of Kades Barnea from this commentator, Psalm 106. What this psalmist, what this poet is saying in the inspiration of God, the Holy Spirit about this event. And it's going to be surprising what he does, because verse 27, just look really quickly, verse 27. That he would cast their seed among the nations and scatter them in the lands. Psalm 106 verse 27 is not something you read about in Numbers 14. It's something that eventually would happen to Israel. for their idolatry and rebellion, but you don't read about it in Numbers 14. Because this central problem, this central episode in this presentation of Israel's failures, gives you the source. It's the seed from which all the other failures flow. That's why it's focal, and that's why verse 27 says, even to the exile, See, Kedesh is not the time of the exile, but the error of Kedesh is the error that brought on the exile because it's the source of all the other sins of Israel. The first thing we'll see in verse 24 is that failure to trust in God means a failure to receive His promised blessing. Failure to trust in God results in a failure to receive His promised blessing. That's one of those universal principles that is so eloquently and elegantly demonstrated in verse 24. The second principle will be that we should learn to listen to God's word in times of trial before we complain about the suffering. How many ears and how many mouths did God give you, remember? Good common sense from mama's kitchen when you were a little kid. They're talking when they should be listening. Very, very cleanly, crisply displayed in verse 25. The third idea will be that God's word is going to be exalted either with our cooperation or in spite of our disobedience. See, these are dogmatic universal principles of Bible doctrine. That the commentator is pulling out of this story as he evaluates it. See, this is this is the This is the ground wire to all the failures of Israel. Fourth, verse 27 shows us that the cause of all the suffering, all the suffering, is a failure to trust in the word of the Lord. All the suffering. Not just the 40 years of wilderness wandering so that that generation died, never receiving the blessing offered, but eventually the exile. and the dispersion into all the lands of the Gentiles. And you see this play out through the history of Israel, even up to the point of the cross. Let his blood be upon our heads and on those of our children, say the Jews in Jerusalem. When Pilate puts Jesus Christ before the crowd, before the mass, the masses, they do not believe, as Jesus says, the words of Moses, and they are not trusting in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because if they had, the Lord Jesus says, they would have heard him. My sheep hear my voice. They didn't hear his voice. And this see, this is a really neat idea for me forevermore. The story of the 12 scouts and the failure for Israel to listen to God and his two faithful servants. The failure to listen to them and the choice to listen to the 10 losers, because they're a majority, except that God's on the other side, this becomes the central the central cause of all the other problems Israel ever had. It's the summary error. And basically it amounts to this. God sets you up with challenges for you to trust him through. And then you are responsible to trust him to do what he said through the course of the challenge, through the testing. And your success will be only determined by the extent to which you trusted the Lord with his promises on the basis of his character instead of concerning yourself with the details of your circumstance. After all, since he set the circumstance up himself, the cause of all the suffering is a failure to trust in the word of the Lord. Our message summarized. Let's look at verse 24 in detail. They rejected the delightful land. They did not trust in his word. What are these two thoughts have to do with each other? That's always the question you ask when you look at a verse of Hebrew poetry. What are these two thoughts have to do with each other? And the answer is quite a lot. What you're learning to do as we go through Hebrew poetry together, what I'm learning to do with you as we go through Hebrew poetry together. We're learning to compare the first line with the second line and see what's the nature of the statement. Sometimes it's a it's a synonymous comparison of like things. Sometimes it's a contrasting comparison of unlike things. And sometimes two will go together to contrast with the next one. And and sometimes line A will start a thought that will be completed in line B. There will be a synthesis of the two thoughts together. There is a synonymous parallelism in verse twenty four. The word of promise, the word that God had given the promise that they would enter the land and be successful, let's let's go to numbers, hold the place and look at just the first part of Numbers chapter 13. What word is he talking about in Psalm 106? He says, The Lord spoke to Moses saying, send out for yourself men so they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I'm going to give to the sons of Israel. You shall send a man from each of their father's tribes, everyone a leader among them. So Moses sent sent them from the wilderness of Peron at the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel. Then he gives the names. So the Lord says, let's do this. And so they do this. They did not trust in his word. Is a recognition of God commanding this delegation to go out and see. And here's what here's what our reconnaissance party is supposed to do. The scout is not supposed to come back and tell you, colonel or general, your battle plan will not work, and here's the new plan. See, the scouts work for the commanding general. The commanding general here is God. He's the commander-in-chief of the forces. He's the lord of the armies, the lord of hosts. He's with them, and he fights their battles for them. And they're the subordinate forces that are under that headquarters, the lord's command. He says, let's send out some reconnaissance. What the reconnaissance is supposed to do is tell you what's on the ground. Now, God already knows what's on the ground. You see, it's like he's got a satellite, but it's better than a satellite. He's infinitely all knowing. But but we're still going to send the scouts out to come back with the message. Why does God do it this way? He's testing them. Why are there giants in the land? He's testing them. He wants them to know that there's a challenge that's bigger than they than they alone can handle. The answer, when they come back, is we can't win. Unless God fights for us That's what they're supposed to come back with but they don't believe that God will fight for them even yet Because they refuse to get their heads out of their own little navels and their own little troubles and circumstances and to look at the big picture that the God who created all things is in our midst and He's giving us instructions and the same law that holds gravity in place the laws of gravity is the same law gate the same lawgiver that gave the law at Sinai and who's giving us instructions to move out. And so they have rejected his promised blessing. The delightful land, yours says the pleasant land. This is an occasional reference. Three or four times we have the land of Israel referred this way, the land of Canaan. The land of promise is described here as delightful. And as you read the story, they come back with all these grapes and oil and wonderful products of the land. Yes, it is delightful. God has promised that it would be. And see, here's the thing, another part of this. On the one hand, you can say. There's all these problems that make us kind of think that God's word isn't really true here. God didn't tell them that they're going to enter a land where there are no giants. He told them they're going to enter a land where there is incredible produce and wonderful productivity. They came back with confirmation of that promise of that word. They came back with the milk and honey, if you will, and said, look, here it is. So you can either say that God's word was not confirmed because, well, there's stuff we didn't know about. You know what? No matter what the promise God has given you, there's stuff regarding that promise you don't know about. That's the nature of omniscience. But on the other hand, you could have said, look, it's just like God said, there's a little more information he didn't share with us. There's some giants. Can't wait to see what's happening here. But we've seen him kill Pharaoh and his army, you see. I mean, it doesn't take they didn't they didn't even need the kind of faith that you and I are called on to have where we haven't seen Pharaoh and his army killed in the Red Sea. We've taken it on faith for Moses record. You haven't seen it. You've taken it on faith. But to whom much is given, much is expected of the whole scriptures before you. You have the whole outline laid out. And so you better take that on faith. But they had they were they were front row seats to this. They walked on dry ground. They live that miracle and they still aren't believing. And so notice the parallelism in the way you just do verbs. They didn't. They rejected and they did not trust. They rejected and they did not trust. What did they reject? The land. They did not trust his word. These are two sides of the same coin. You want the blessings God has to offer you? You better trust him with what he said. You want to enter the land? Trust him is the idea. And so rejecting the land is the same as the consequence of the cause, the effect of the cause. They didn't trust in his word. And so the exodus generation might beg to differ. We didn't reject the land. We rejected getting killed by giants. But see, they're looking at giants instead of the giant, the God who has told them they've got it here. I'm giving it to you. It's the height of ingratitude to be told, I'm giving you this gift, and to say, well, I don't really know if you can give it to me. I don't really know if you can handle the giving of this gift, God, is what they're saying. So they're rejecting it by not trusting in his word. Failure to trust is failure to receive God's blessing, we said. Failure to trust is failure to receive his blessing. Let's get four points on this concept first. As with Israel at Kadesh, God has marvelous blessings in store for you. This directly applies to you. You know, it's not hard to see, I mean, you're not Israel, you're not entering the promised land, but the blessings of inheritance laid up for you, the rulership with Christ that is in question, depending on your faithfulness to God and his word. your attention and not only in its intake, but in its application, your discernment. When the decision comes, the question always, what is God's mind on the matter before me? Not what makes me the most money, not what makes me the most comfortable, not what is success in the world's eyes, but what is God's mind on the matter that before me? You see, you have many blessings in store for you, but These require this important factor of trust. Many of these blessings, secondly, await your successful negotiation of certain trials or tests. Many of these blessings are very similar. We have this for us in this passage for our faith. We see the failure, so we learn how to work through this one. If you see giants in the way of receiving God's promises, you are at K''. One illustration that I've seen again and again and again and again is a lady married to a man who will not give her the benefit of 1 Peter 3 7. A man who is a slothful, a sluggardly husband who fails to treat his wife as a fellow heir of life so that for sure his prayers are hindered. He is never in fellowship with God. He is, in Paul's language in Philippians, an enemy of the cross by his practice. I see it again and again and again. A wife whose husband will not treat her as a fellow heir of life. Such a man does not deserve to be followed to the bathroom, around the corner, followed out of a swimming pool, much less through the major choices in life. Such a man does not begin to understand or live out the responsibilities God lays on him in seven or eight verses in Ephesians chapter five. The wife is still responsible to the Lord in her spiritual life and the filling of God, the Holy Spirit, to be a Christian wife to that loser husband. And again and again and again, this is a great illustration that I've seen so often because it's so easy to get out of these uncomfortable situations legally, not economically, but legally, it's easy. I mean, the law is not going to stop you. I see again and again the claim by these ladies that they cannot be an Ephesians 5 wife to this loser husband. You see, what they've got is a giant in their face and a command with promises from the Lord Jesus Christ through the pen of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 5 and elsewhere. You've got a giant with a big club He's going to knock your head off. And I don't mean physically, I'm not talking about physical, I'm just talking about, you know what I mean, a sluggish husband, a typical American man. That's where we are. That's that's our culture. And my challenge to not the man, I've got something to say to the man. Like. Let's start over at square one and who is Jesus Christ, since you're supposed to be his representative in this marriage, my exhortation to such a lady and yours can be to your encouragement for such a lady as you are being challenged with giants before entrance into the promised land. By illustration, by by analogy, I'm I'm using this as an analogy to the blessings that are ours for our obedience and the power of the spirit to the commands of Scripture in this age. You see, the tests and challenges are heavy, weighty challenges, and the answer is not to say, well, I can't do it because there's a giant. And that's what I hear again and again and again, I can't do it. There's a giant. You don't know what it's like to live with this giant. And I don't, but I have read Numbers 13 and 14 and I've read Psalm 106 as commentary. And if you're not going to trust the Lord and obey him, you're going to make the same mistake as Israel at Kadesh Barnea. You're not you're going to fail to trust him. Many of these blessings await your successful negotiation of certain trials or tests. And here is the great hope for you. Everyone that's in this kind of impossible situation where I can't comes to mind so quickly. Because God has lots of giants that he's kind of peppered and sprinkled through our lives. When we get this kind of situation, you're not supposed to think of it in terms of temporal benefits. Well, my lifestyle in the next 20 years, only got 20 years left. My lifestyle be so much nicer for the next 20 years. If I just go ahead and cut sling load, as we used to say in the army, just kind of get rid of this uncomfortable giant situation and get get on into my own little temporal or in this life promised land. The problem with that is you're not going to hear well done. or at the bonfire until the judgment seat of Christ. And that's not coming to the resurrection. And there's way too many Christians in in the doctrinal movement of the teaching church movement. There are way too many believers all across the fruited plain who are waiting for temporal blessings and forfeiting eternal blessings, which are so much greater and higher. But the Ephesians chapter one spiritual blessings and heavenly places stored up for you in Christ are primarily about eternity. And thank God they are. It's not about a sports car or a certain mortgage that you can afford to pay in this life. It's about my mansions and my father's house. where we're headed. And that's why Jesus, again and again, store up treasures in heaven where moth and rust can't destroy, thieves can't break in and steal. These are secure. You know, what kind of investment can we put our temporal blessings into? Well, you'll never beat the moth and rust and the thieves unless you invest it with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then you're infinitely secure because you have an infinite guardian of your treasure. And so I see in this passage a great challenge for us. But you see the pattern that God often establishes, and he certainly has in your life. I'm not going to second Peter. I'm not going to I'm sorry, first Peter. I'm not going to James. I'm not going to Hebrews about all the suffering passages. I'm not going to 2nd Corinthians tonight. But that's all through the New Testament that the Christian life, one great summary statement of the Christian life is take up your cross daily and follow me. That's what a disciple of Christ does. Third, to successfully pass the tests God has laid up for you or laid in store for you, you must always trust Him. The test is always about trust. Now, it's helpful to be able to summarize the broad brush things. It's very important. It's like It's like one of my favorite illustrations. It's the gift that keeps on giving. It's the semi-automatic handgun. There are as many of those as, I mean, there are hundreds of varieties and variations and flavors to choose from. There are expensive ones and cheap ones and big ones and little ones. Used to, it was a revolver or a Colt .45, 1911. That was pretty much the choices. Now, it's many options of revolvers and many options of semi-automatic handguns. They have them very simple to operate and very complex to operate. Here's the thing, no matter what the handgun is, there's one thing you have to be sure that you do to operate it properly in terms of your buttons that you have to push. There's a magazine spring, a magazine button to operate that releases the magazine. There may be a slide to, well, in a semi-automatic there will be a slide to charge. There might be a safety, there might be a decocker, there might be all these things, but one thing that always has to happen if you're going to successfully operate that weapon system, and I mean make it go off, is you have to pull the trigger. You're never going to get away from the need for a trigger, even if it's not shaped like a traditional trigger, even when they come up with something that's different. You know, like in cars today, you can push a button in some high-end cars, and that starts the ignition. It's no longer turning the key, which is actually more complicated mechanically. You just push the button, and that makes it start. Well, you're never going to get away from the need for a trigger with a handgun. And in Glock is one company that has said, you know what, let's simplify this one button or sorry to slide release. I'm sorry, magazine release and trigger and just don't pull it and it won't go off. You know, and and my point in this illustration is that no matter what the test is, no matter what the challenge is, you're always going to pull the trigger of faith. You're always going to have to trust him. And and often you're like, well, I don't know what to do now. You need to trust him. And I hope you understand trust and faith are synonymous. Same same ideas, trust and faith. And I hope you also understand that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And what's so often missing in the in the height and the heat of the challenge, where what could be an awesome victory and it could be a Mount Carmel experience with Elijah. is the day after a total failure because you don't have anything to believe in because you're you're empty on the word of God. You don't have anything in the memory banks to trust in. His word is an echoing and reverberating in your soul. And so you're dry. So there's not so I don't know what to do. Well, what do I do now? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? You're not trusting him. And every time you scream, what do I do? Anyone that can hear you can say, oh, look, Kate, it's Barnea. This person isn't trusting him. And maybe you can't say that, but that's because of a lack of perspective. But be sure that the other believers around you certainly can can see when you're trusting him and when you're not for trusting God requires that, you know, his word and believe it. Trusting God, I know there are lots of people I trust in the Lord. It's the love the Lord crowd. They don't know the first thing about him, but they love him, boy. They hear a great sermon on Sunday and it rouses their emotions and it's good to be here. And I just got my religion. They used to call it getting religion. They don't call it that anymore. I don't know what they call it. They call it the seeker movement. It's the same thing. It's just it's catering or pandering to your sense of emotional fulfillment. And that's going to be what gets you through the hump. But it doesn't. Because see, when this is when that when things are bad, when the spies come back and we're like, there's some giants that we have to talk about, there's no emotional high. There's there's a cognitive process that goes on and says, me against giants, we're going to lose. We're done. And so trusting God requires that, you know, his word and believe it. That's always going to be the answer. Well pastor if that's always going to be the answer then thank you for that message. We don't really need to come back Here's the problem Here's the problem we forget Learn the lesson of Israel these people have not been two years For sure at this point since walking across the Red Sea on dry land and seeing God's works hasn't been a year since hearing God's voice such that they thought they were all going to die from his omnipotence and on display in a very small fraction of his omnipotence on Mount Sinai, where God himself in Exodus 20 is speaking. It hasn't been it's been just a few months since since that time. And and they're already not trusting him. It's going to have to be the word taken in with faith. Believing the word of God as we hear it so that the Holy Spirit can use it in us. And when it's time for us to trust in God and the things we can't see that he's promised us, despite all those giants that we can see or that one gnarly, slothful husband that we can see, the answer is going to be, I'm going to trust in what God has said. And I'm going to obey his command to attack. I don't take that literally attacking that slothful husband, because that's the opposite of the requirement. Verse 25, they slandered or grumbled in their tents. This word translated in your New American Standard, or my New American Standard, grumbled, usually means grumbled in the cow, but this isn't the cow. Actually, it'd be better rendered slandered in their tents. And if you read it, they're saying you brought us out here to kill us. They're saying all kinds of horrible things about Moses. Moses is a great study in leadership. He's like the quintessential study in leadership, because as soon as you just do what God said to do. Be sure people are going to kill you, accuse you of trying to kill their babies. I mean, that's what happens to Moses. And read it in Exodus chapter three or chapter four. Moses doesn't want the job. And God says, you don't want the job. The job is that I will tell you what to say and you just say it. That's the job. I'll tell you what to do and you'll do it. Lord, you can send anybody you want. And then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses. See, OK, Aaron will say it will speak, but I'm going to put my words in your mouth and you tell him to Aaron. I'll put him in his mouth, too. And. Moses is the recipient of this verb, but so is the Lord. As we can read, as as you read the story, they grumbled in their tents. They did not listen to the voice of the Lord. Remember that statement we said? You're right. If you're starting to think in terms of the Hebrew poetry, this is what the literature does. Start asking it, what are these two lines have to do with each other? The editors have already done most of the work by giving you verse numbers. So they tell you, here's your comparison pieces, start comparing. Look at the thoughts that are being compared and contrasted in verse 25. They slandered and they did not listen, are the verbs that are in the beginning of the sentences. They slandered and they didn't listen. One thing they're doing with their mouth, the other thing they're not doing with their ears. You see it? Intentional. By God's design, this is set up here. They slandered in their tents. They did not listen to the voice of the Lord. We said that we should learn to listen to God's word in times of trial. We should learn to listen to God's word in times of trial, not to start. Oh, I'm not listening to that anymore. This is trouble. That's when you need to be listening. That's when you need to say, wait a second. The answer to the riddle of giants in the land plus milk and honey with God's command to attack is. God said we take it, so let's take it. And that's what Caleb and Joshua both challenged the people with, by the way, they're the only two of that generation that went. They got that they lived long enough. God preserved them long enough to go to land. The story of Caleb is the great story of of the senior citizen soldier. He's. 80 as he enters the land to attack and he leads his tribe to go on On their conquest of their portion of the land and they succeed where others say well, we just couldn't do it Caleb did it with his soldiers because He because of his attitude really and God was with him because of that faith We should listen. We should learn to listen to God's Word in times of trial before we complain about the suffering There I know that Suffering hits a button in you that opens your mouth. We're made that way to speak about what's going on, we're made to respond to our situation with our mouth. But the problem is that sin has gotten into that design. And now that what we say is anti God, it's an enemy of the cross, it's the opposite of reality, we can't do it as opposed to God said, do it, you can do it because he's with you. Before we complain about the suffering, we need to listen. Because if we listen, then when we open our mouth, you know what we'll do? We'll say what Caleb and Joshua said. We'll say, yeah, they're giants. Let's go. We'll say what David said. Who's this uncircumcised Philistine who's dishonoring the God of Israel? I'll go kill the giant. Here, give me my slingshot. First, grumbling about circumstances is not the root of the problem, even though God gets them for it and says, you're going to tell me about your babies? OK, they get to go in and you don't. You see, grumbling is like the last straw that God nails them for. But that's not the root of the problem. It is a symptom of the problem. Now, we all know that it's helpful to take care of symptoms. You know, if you get poison ivy, Eventually, you're going to have to get that oil off of you, and it may just have to run its course. If I get poison ivy, I'm going to have to go to the hospital and get a shot, or some clinic, because I might just die if I don't. Life in the Boy Scouts has taught me such. But see, the symptom that pops up when you get poison ivy? You're going to treat it with Caladril or whatever little ointment or get some Benadryl to get your body to stop fighting, stop producing histamine and so forth. But the real problem is that you touch the poison ivy in the first place. And the solution is not to pack Caladril, although you should in your rucksack. The solution is to look around you and don't touch that stuff. And see, that's the idea of the symptom versus the root problem. If you've got a headache, it's okay to take an aspirin or something, depending on if you can take aspirin. It's okay to do something about that headache, but there may be a reason why you have it. You might be dehydrated. You might be getting sick. Who knows? Whatever the cause, it's okay to look at symptoms, and the Bible does address symptoms, but this passage tells you where the heart of the problem is. the heart of the problem. Secondly, treating the symptom can help, but it does not fix the problem. So when they're grumbling and complaining. You know, they might have just put their hands on their mouths, like my kindergarten teacher used to make the kids line up and walk through the halls this way, so we'd know. Don't talk, okay? Because we were babies, and so we would know that my fingers over my mouth. It's harder to talk with my fingers. Maybe they could have put their hands over their mouths, or Moses could have told them to shut up, and then they wouldn't have grumbled and complained. That would have handled the symptom. But see, there's something deeper. The Bible doesn't just do symptoms, it doesn't just do window dressing, it goes to the inside problem, the inner core. Third, very often we react in arrogance to suffering by speaking when we should listen. That's that button that's connected from suffering to your mouth. We bypass thinking God's thoughts, just operate on what comes natural in our arrogance from the old sin nature, and we start speaking when we should listen. Fourth, Arrogance focuses on the problem or discomfort. Why? Because it's you. You shouldn't have to put up with this. This is me. I'm not going to go get killed by some giants. I mean, let someone else, let Dan or Ephraim go do that, but I'm not doing that. Arrogance focuses on the problem or discomfort, but the humility of faith, point five, focuses on God and his promises despite the circumstances of suffering. You see, it's not the Christian view. It's not the biblical view that we disregard suffering as though it doesn't exist. It does. And I was once asked, are you are you one of those kinds of pastors that says we're supposed to be happy or rejoicing? Well, by the exact meanings of the language that you just use, you just quoted scripture in First Thessalonians five and Philippians four. Rejoice always. Again, I say rejoice. So, yes, but I don't think I mean by that what you mean by that. I don't mean that life's always going to be comfortable. What I mean is that the reality of your position in Christ is so much far and away better than any problem in your present circumstance, that that rationale of who I am in Christ and for no other reason is enough to squash that little mosquito problem that would otherwise dominate your focus. But you see, you have to have humility and say, this is not about me. This is about God. And what is God's word said about this? Humility of faith focuses on God and his promises, despite the circumstances of suffering. Now, be careful about that word circumstance, because my understanding of the way joy works, it's related to your circumstance. The problem with saying circumstance, we usually mean temporal situation that I can see, like I'm being falsely accused of something I didn't do at work, something like that. That is your circumstance. That's a temporal circumstance. Circumstances means your situation. Well, eternally, there's a circumstance, too. And I'd focus on that. Who am I in Christ? What has he said about my position and my destiny? You can't have a better destiny. You can't hope for a better future than what God has promised you already. The humility of faith focuses on God and His promises, despite the circumstances of suffering. Now, here's the problem with the promise that you're going to claim your promises. You ready for why? That's what you should do. That's what Israel should have done. Here's where you will short circuit that, and it won't be effective. You ready? You disconnect the promise from the person offering it. You memorize your scripture verse and you fail to recognize I am talking about the living God who is my father. My father said that he's causing all things to work together for good. And so that promise that I take of Romans 828 or any of the other passages that tell me who I am and what I can expect, these promises are grounded in the character and righteousness and justice and love of my father, of his son, of the Holy Spirit. And so you have to personalize the promises. Promises, promises. Personalize these promises. A promise means somebody has put his character on the line to offer it. Verse 26. He lifted up his hand to them that he would cause them to fall in the desert. Now, your Bible, if you have the Bible translation that I'm reading from, generally the New American Standard of 1995, it says, therefore, he swore to them that he would cast them down in the wilderness. Well, why did I translate it? He lifted up his hand to them. Well, My Bible also has a little A, and it gives you Numbers 20, verse 3. Well, the problem with that is some New American Standard Bibles will have a little 1 by that and tell you that he lifted his hand. Now, think about this. When you lift your hand, even in our culture, this is how you take an oath. What is this hand? I'm raising my hand. And this is this means universally that I'm swearing to what I'm saying. This is this is a Hebrew idiom. And it does mean to take an oath. He swore an oath. Now, why would I not translate the idiom into English as to take an oath? This is a great example of why you want to go back to the Hebrew and why the translator sometimes in the interest of giving you Idiom and what it means from the Hebrew and what we would think they take away the parallel in the poetry Notice he lifted up and he caused them to fall There's an up and a down and if you just say oh if you don't see that connection that motif there's the upping in line a and a downing in line B and I would not have seen that if I just went with English You see He lifted up his hand. Well, it means he took an oath. He swore that he would cause them to fall in the desert. But the poet is intentionally opposing the raising up and the lowering down in line A and line B. So it does mean to swear the oath, but the way it's stated, you see the theme of raising up and laying low. Every one of these, by the way, is straightforward. verb-noun clause, verb-noun clause. He lifted up that he would cause a fall. He lifted up his hand to them, and this is bad English, he would cause to fall them in the desert, but that's what I see, in order that to cause to fall them, direct object marker with the pronoun, in the desert. He would cause to fall them in the desert, and that's, they would cause them to fall in the desert. Notice that the red you have the verbs the lifting up and the falling down and God is doing both and in the blue the end of the the two lines you have God's hand and them Opposed in the desert and that's see that's part of that beautiful parallelism in the poetry and you can see the the antonym here the the things that are being contrasted and You see, if you're not going to get on board with God's way. He's still going to be exalted. He's still going to be honored and carrying out what he's promised he would do. And God, by the way, promised that he would do this and he did what he promised. They didn't believe his word that they could take the giants out and that they could conquer and receive this land. OK. Their choice was to to enter and attack or not enter and get the next promise. The next promise isn't so nice. You're all going to fall in the desert. Actually, verse 26 and 27 go together because you keep having these things that he lifted up his hand that he would cause a fall and that and that in verse 27. But let's summarize what we got out of verse 26. You see the exaltation of the Word of God here. By that theme of elevating himself and his hand and his oath and his word that they won't believe. Well, which then the word now is that you will be laid low in the desert. See that great contrast, they're opposed, they're on the wrong side of God's word, that's always the losing side. First, I want you to note the lifting up of God's hand and an oath, his word as compared to the causing of Israel to fall in the desert. You have promise, or word, and action. Actions speak louder than words. Well, Lord, you told us we could take the land, but we see giants, so we're not sure we're going to believe what you said. Okay, I'm going to kill you all in the desert. See if I don't. Forty years, they were all dead. So you have the lifting up of God's hand and oath compared with the causing of Israel to fall in the desert. And the focus there, as you can see, is there on the wrong side of God's word. So now his word thrashes them. Second, the word of God is always exalted. We started with Psalm 138 to tonight. My introduction, Psalm 138 to you have magnified your word according to all your name. The word of God carries forth the same glory and honor and importance and prominence as the very person and reputation of God. I just wish God would speak to me that statement when rejecting the scriptures and looking for him to talk to you and your chosen way, which is the problem of our of our time. People disregard the Bible. People that carry Bibles around still disregard them looking for that mystical inner voice. They will not listen to the concrete statements of scripture. They need it their way. They want their mystical version of what they think God should be doing. But he says in Psalm 138, too, I've magnified my word. He's magnified his word according to his name. Third, therefore, the first, therefore, therefore, sub one. If the word is always exalted. Then when you're with it, you'll be exalted as well. You want to be exalted, you want to be honored, you want to be significant and prominent in what really matters? Then you better go where the exaltation is. He's given you his word. It's just another little indicator right here in this passage. When you see the contrast, I don't want to be in that contrast of verse 26, where God is laying me low as he is raising his hand. Fourth, therefore, the sub two, when you are against God's word, you can expect the opposite of exaltation. Because that's the that's the pattern of scripture. Maybe, you know, that in topography, as as the plates shift, you have the pushing down when there's a when when the plates come together, it makes mountains because you have a pushing down and lifting up. Maybe you remember that from fourth grade science books or something that pushing down of the one side, pushing up of the other. Bible says that the Mount of the House of Lord is going to be lifted above all the mountains. Mountain being a metaphor for nations. Kingdoms. You see, everything that is raised in defiance or independence of God is cut short, cut off at the knees, cut to the ground, because God alone gets the glory. And that's what Israel forsook. They rejected the glory of God. So, OK, you're not going to be where exaltation happens. You're where the destruction happens. This is like the Apostle Paul's question in Galatians. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Think about the riddle that that statement is. That assumes that what I'm telling you is the truth. And if that makes me your enemy. You see, what side are you on? Light or dark, truth or false, one or the other. And the Bible says, as we benefit from in digital circuitry and all the lifestyle things that we have in our culture today, the Bible says that it's one way or the other. He separated the light from the darkness, the darkness he called day and the I'm sorry, the light he called day in the darkness, he called night. God made that digital distinction long before there was ever a single transistor or a vacuum tube. Verse 27, elaborating on his oath. That he would cause a fall their seed among the nations, that same word for fall in the fall in the hill, which means to cause to fall, that he would cause their Zerah to fall, Begoyim, in the nations, among the nations. That he would scatter them and play on words and that he would Zerah, their Zerah, their seed, he would Zerah, he would scatter them among the lands. Now, that is not in Numbers 14. Interestingly, but it is in Leviticus 26. God promised that he would do this. He would send a sword after them when he did it. You have 18 times of the scattering among the lands in the Old Testament, this exact language described. And my point in in this verse 27, my observation is that he left the he left the building from the Kadesh thing and showed you where it eventually takes you. This goes to the exile eventually. He swore that he would do this if they didn't trust him. We read in the Palestinian covenant. I'm sorry, not the Palestinian covenant. We read in the promise of the cycles of discipline in Deuteronomy chapter 28 of the destruction for disobedience and blessing for obedience. But see, before we talk about the symptom of obedience and disobedience, let's talk about the root, which is faith. Believing what he said and living it, paying attention to his word. Leviticus 2633 is your promise to do this. So this is a step further than what you saw at Kadesh Barnea. It takes you ultimately to Nebuchadnezzar's chariots in 586 BC. He would cause their seed to fall among the nations. He would scatter them among the lands. The spirit of Kadesh Barnea, where God gave a word with instructions, a promise with instructions. You will enter and be blessed. Go and attack. And they said no, because they could see giants. What they could see became the basis upon which they would make their decision. Instead of what God had said, it's Eve or Isha before she was Eve in the Garden of Eden. God said, don't eat, it'll kill you. The snake says God's holding back because he's a meanie. The woman says, well, I can see I can reason. I'm not I'm not a complete idiot. Chomp. Going by your observation, that's empiricism, or your reasoning, devoid of faith. Now, don't put a wall between faith, reason, and observation. Don't say that we don't have a reasoned faith. Don't say we don't have an observable faith. If you read the gospel accounts, there's an empty tomb that is the heart of our confession. There is no archaeological evidence to the contrary. There's a missing body because it was resurrected. We we don't have a blind faith where we take a leap of faith and somebody has a has a skeleton somewhere And we said well, you know, it's a spiritual resurrection Right. We don't know we don't take a blind leap of Kierkegaardian faith We take the faith based on what God has said and and observe throughout all of creation the witness that he is born to himself with our observation with our reasoning But we start with what God has said and watch him bear it out. We expect him to bear it out because faith is not reason and faith is not observation. We said in verse 27, this takes it from the temporal suffering of the next generation dying in the wilderness to the ultimate destruction of the nation and the ultimate exile, the cause of all the suffering is a failure to trust in the word of the Lord. That's the cause of all the suffering. First, verse 27, as I said, takes us beyond Kadesh to the ultimate judgment of Israel's exile from the land, which is stated again and again in the prophets to be because of idolatry. Why did idolatry happen? They did not complete the conquest because they didn't trust him. So they weren't able to take all the idolaters out, and then they started worshiping the gods of the people that were still left in Canaan, in the land of Canaan. Second, by structural design of this passage, we see that the heart of the errors which caused the sufferings of Israel is the sin is is this lack of failure. We see the heart. By looking at the design and notice the way we said it was you remember that that slide where it's center-seeking Where it gets to K' he's telling you this is the heart of of all the problems This is a universal problem. That is most exquisitely demonstrated in the K' error third the sin of grumbling like all sins began with a shifted focus a shifted focus what I mean is I'm like, I mean, like like Peter looking at Jesus and can walk on water in the minute, the second, the instant he looks away, he's sinking. He can walk on water if he is focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, but the minute he looks at the wind and the waves, it says, see, the sin of grumbling, like all sins began with a shifted focus. That's not in your mouth. That's in your heart. A shifted focus from God's promises to their circumstances. Your heart is either concentrating on your circumstances and your troubles or on the solution with a capital S, the personal solution, who is the God who has made you and brought this storm to test you. Fourth and last, the reality of the circumstance. Is that God has orchestrated these problems in order to train you to trust him. The reality of your circumstances is God has brought these things. He put those giants there or allowed them to be there on purpose just for such a time as this. And we see it again and again in the Old Testament, it continually bears witness and testimony to God's sufficiency. So. There's that giant. I shouldn't have to deal with this is what arrogance says. Why would God do this to me? Arrogance will follow up with humility says God has something greater and better in mind for me and in a Romans 828 way I know and I pray and I continue to reflect on his goodness and grace that he is bringing forth His glory and his goodness for me on my behalf according to his eternal plan Through this trouble and this is how we look at problems. This is how we look at suffering. It's easy to say It's really easy to say if you spend all day looking at it My prayer for you is that you'll recognize really quickly that no matter how sophisticated the weapon, you better pull that trigger of faith. Always faith in what God has promised. Heavenly Father, we praise you for the Word of God, which is alive and powerful. Thank you that it communicates all that you desire for us to know of yourself. And here in this message, this commentary on numbers 13 and 14, the events that Moses lived through, we see ourselves, we see our failures, we see the solution. And father, we see a simulation of the next test we're going to go through. We can either look at the details of the situation. And reject your promises, or we can trust you through it. and reckon that your commands are meant for our good and for your glory. I pray that we'll be equipped and strengthened, brought to spiritual maturity in love by your precious son, by our attention on these things. I pray it in Christ's name. Amen.