We're going to touch on that theme in the sermon, too, where we sang, Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be, Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and power to free. So let's turn to Scripture, Numbers 14 in the Old Testament. If you're just joining us this morning, these stories here in Numbers, at least in this part, happened early on in the wilderness years, just after God rescued Israel from Egypt. These are the beginning of the wilderness years here in Numbers 14. I'm just going to read the first 19 verses then. God's holy word. Listen to it carefully. By the way, right before this, the 10 spies or the 10 scouts gave a negative report of the land of Canaan. Remember, they had just gone into Canaan and they said, there's no way. And here's the response. God's word. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.' Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land, They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people, for you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now, if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, it is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them, that he has killed them in the wilderness. And now please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and the fourth generation. Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. It's God's word. I recently read a story about a man fishing with his brothers in Minnesota in the 90s. And they were fishing, and he was standing on a rock. I think they were going for walleye or bass or something like that. And he fell in, and of course, he got soaking wet, and all of his brothers thought that was hilarious. And the man writing the story said, when this guy came up out of the water, he cussed so badly that the birds in the trees around him actually died. Now, we really don't know what to do with that, right? I mean, on the one hand, there's some humor there. But on the other hand, it's a little offensive, right, to cuss that badly. Now, the point is, I don't know if this author was a Christian or not, but the point is, people know that bad words have consequences. They do things. They have effects. Now, in our story, Israel's bad words shock Israel's leaders and lead to a sermon and a prayer. Israel's bad words, as we're going to see, do something. Well, they shock the leaders of Israel, Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Caleb, and they lead to a sermon by Joshua and Caleb and a prayer by Moses. So that's the story that we're gonna look at this morning. And once again, this is in response to the 10 scouts in the land who said, there's no way we can take the land. And this happens. So the outline goes like this this morning. First of all, the congregation complains. That's very clear. Then the leaders comment, right? Then something happens to the leaders and they comment. And then the congregation conspires, right? They want a stone, the leaders. and then Moses prays. So we're just going to go in the order of the text. So first of all, let's look at this congregation's complaining. Okay, so all the congregation, verse 1 says, raises a loud cry, and the people wept that night. So after the ten scouts said, there's giants in the land, their cities are fortified, and we're like grasshoppers to them, we're going to die if we go in there. You can imagine this big meeting, after the people heard this, they wept. They let out a loud groan and tears were coming down their cheeks. It kind of reminds you of a little child throwing like a temper tantrum of anger, right? And it's no wonder God calls Israel stubborn children in Isaiah 30 or a stiff-necked people in Nehemiah. They're crying and weeping. Now look at their words. In verse 2, they grumble. There's that word again. They complained against Moses and Aaron, and they said, would, that means, if only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness. We would rather have died in this wilderness, or in Egypt, than to die by the sword in the promised land, by the sword of those Canaanite giants. And then look how they complain. Look in verse 3. Why is the Lord bringing us into this land? To fall by the sword? Wow. Do you see what they're doing here? If God is a shepherd, he is, but maybe they're thinking their turn. He's leading us as lambs to the slaughter. He's like a farmer leading cattle to the butcher. Did God bring us here to die? Now actually, in Deuteronomy 1, it's a quote of what Israel said at this time, that happens later, it's recalled later. Deuteronomy 1, they said, Yahweh has brought us out of Egypt because he hates us to destroy us. And then look how they keep going. Our wives and little ones will become a prey. That means spoil for a battle, right? Our wives and our covenant children will be taken by these Canaanites and made captives. Don't you care about our covenant kids? Don't you care about our helpless wives? And then verse 4, they talked amongst each other. There's a murmur in the big crowd, right? Let's choose a leader and go back to Egypt. That's what we'll do. Now kids, have you ever heard the word mutiny? Maybe you've seen a TV show or movie or read a book about, you know, an old Navy ship where a whole bunch of people on the ship conspired against the captain and they made the captain of the ship, you know, they tied him up with the first mate and they locked him in a little room in the ship and they took over the ship. That's mutiny, going against the captain. That's what's going on in this story, isn't it? God is the captain, so to speak, and Moses and so forth are the first mates, and the Israelites are being mutinous. They're committing mutiny. They want a new captain, and they want to go a different way. Now, this is foolish on the one hand, isn't it? So, do the Israelites really think that the Egyptians are just going to let them back in? Remember the Egyptians, all their firstborn died? Remember they just lost most of their army in the Red Sea about a year, year and a half earlier? It's foolish because there's no way the Egyptians are going to let the Israelites back into Egypt. It's foolish. But even worse, it's wicked, isn't it? When I was reading this this week, I mean, I've heard this story before, I've read it before, but it was shocking, again, to read it kind of afresh and think, Look what Israel's saying about God. We learned earlier about this too. The Israelites sinned. They doubted God. They feared man more than God. They were walking by sight, not by faith. But here, they go a step further and they accuse God of wrongdoing. God has brought us here to die. He's not good, he's not loving, he's not wise. He's making a colossal mistake. God has brought us in the wilderness to kill us. Now, I think the worst case scenario, best case scenario is they're saying God is foolish and his foolishness is gonna lead to our death. That's a best case scenario, I would say. Worst case scenario, the Israelites are saying that God is homicidal. that God has brought them out here to kill them. This is a terrible sin. They were acting like they were the potter and God was the clay. They were trying to be God's counselor. Now one author put it this way, he said, we can relate this to the Israelites and kind of to our lives, when God looks bad, sin looks good, and taking matters into our own hands sounds right. Say that again. When God looks bad, like he did here for Israel, sin looks good, go back to Egypt, and then taking matters into our own hands seems right. It seemed logical to them to go back to Egypt because they thought God was bad. So we have got to resist the urge to ever accuse God of any wrongdoing. Their doubt and unbelief spiraled into them saying God was doing evil. So we have got to make sure that we never accuse God of doing wrong. We don't want to put God on trial. We'd rather think like Elihu. Remember, one of Job's good counselors actually in Job 34 said, That's what we as believers need to say in any circumstance in our life. Even the worst trial that God brings your way. You know trials. When the worst trial comes your way, instead of saying, God, why are you doing this to me? You're doing something wrong. We say with Elihu, heart of faith, far be it from the Almighty that he should do wrong. It's a lesson for us. We don't put God in the dock. Now look at the leader's comment. So that's the congregation complaining. The second part here is where the leader's comment or something happens. Look in verse 5. Moses and Aaron fall on their faces before the whole congregation. Now, I know we read this in the Bible, but it's not normal for grown men, older men, to fall down in the dirt before a whole group of people, even today. Wouldn't that be awkward? Why do they fall down? Well, we're not 100% sure, but there's some good options. Maybe they fell down to just pray, oh God, don't kill the people this second for their evil. And Moses does pray, we'll listen to that later. Maybe it's because they were so shocked by Israel's sin that they literally, their legs got weak and they fell down. Oh, what's going on? Because that's shocking to hear people blame God of something like homicide. Or maybe another option here, maybe they're afraid what God's going to do. Duck. Watch out. I've heard some pretty terrible blasphemy before. I don't know if you have. I remember we were watching a movie once and it was one of the worst blasphemous phrases that I ever heard. We shut the movie off quickly. And it shakes you inside. And I know you make a joke, God's going to strike them with lightning, but sometimes that kind of blasphemy leads to that kind of response. Moses and Aaron hit the ground. Now look what Joshua and Caleb do, the other leaders, the two spies that said it's good, Joshua and Caleb, they said to all the congregation, actually it says they tore their clothes before they spoke. In verse 6, whatever cloaks and robes they were wearing, they tore some of their clothes. Now once again, this is not normal. It's shocking. Israel had said such a sinful thing that Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes. Now in the Old Testament, people would tear their clothes to mourn death. It was a sorrow. And in the Old Testament, if there was a disease or a plague, people would tear their clothes over grief. And prophets would tear their clothes over judgment. Maybe Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes because of the judgment that they're afraid is coming. Or like Matthew Henry said, because of holy indignation at the sin of the people. Holy indignation at the sin of Israel. And then they give a sermon, they comment. Verse seven says, the land that we pass through, it's an exceedingly good land. It's really good. In the Hebrew, it's ma'od, ma'od. It's very, very good land. Now this is in contrast to what the other people said. It would be good or better for us to go back to Egypt. And they use that term good. No, it's better, better, better for us to go into the promised land. So they contradict in a good way. And then they say in verse 8, look, if Yahweh delights in us, he'll bring us into this land and give it to us. This land of milk and honey. Now they're quoting God again. Remember, God called it a land of milk and honey. Caleb and Joshua show faith by quoting God's word. And what does it mean if Yahweh delights in us? Well, that doesn't mean, you know, if they do many good works, then God will give them the land as a reward for works. That's not at all what Caleb and Joshua are saying. But it's more like Jeremiah 9. The Lord delights in righteousness. Or Psalm 51. You delight in truth in the innermost being. So Joshua and Caleb are saying, look, if we just trust God and go into the land and obey him, he'll give it to us. If he delights in us. Now there's an opposite in Hebrews 10. If God does not delight in the one who shrinks back, that person will be destroyed. Don't shrink back and be destroyed, but go in faith and God will give it to you. And then in their sermon, there's a little rebuke too, only don't rebel against the Lord. That's what they were doing. And this rebellion is not a mild little sin, but it's a terrible sin. Don't do what you're doing because you know what? Your rebellion is going to lead to much worse things than the Canaanite swords. You all know what a lighthouse does, I presume. I don't know if you've been to a coast where there's a lighthouse and you visited the lighthouse on a dark and foggy night. A lighthouse lights, you know, it does the beacon around and around so the ships out there can say, warning, danger, there's rocks here and you'll crash. Joshua and Caleb are like a lighthouse, warning for rebellion. You'll be destroyed for rebellion. Don't rebel. And then they go on to encourage Don't fear the people of the land for they're bred for us. Now, bred for us, that's a figure of speech. Another way to say it is, you know, we'll devour them in battle. We have figures of speech like this too, right? We're going to wipe them out. We'll win. And then more encouragement, he says here in verse 9, their protection is removed from them. And what does that mean? Now, not 100% sure here, but back in Genesis 15, God said that he was going to punish the Amorites when their sins were full. The Amorites lived in Canaan with the Canaanites. Maybe this is that. Maybe their sins are full and God says, look, I'm going to pull my common grace protection from this nation now. You're going to go in and destroy them as punishment for their sins. That's a biblical idea. Their protection is gone. God is not their shield, we can go take them. And then their last encouragement here, they says, the Lord is with us. Those words alone should give Israel confidence to go in. Those words for Christians, the Lord is with you, should give you as Christians confidence to go through anything in life. God is here with me. I can do all things through him. The Lord is with us. What does the size of the enemy have to do with anything? The Lord is with us. What does the number of the enemies have to do with anything? If they were 2 million strong and all 20 feet tall, it doesn't matter because God is with us. Encouragement. Now one thing we see here is Joshua and Caleb's faith. unshakable confidence that the victory belongs to God. They're saying in the sermon, God can do all things. Trust, follow. They trusted God's promise to bring them in. It wasn't a leap in the dark. Remember, I keep saying that. This is not a leap in the dark for Joshua and Caleb. This is confidence knowing God's character and his promise and his word. We're going to take it and let's go in. It's faith in God's promise. Oh, for faith like that in our lives. When there's a tough trial in front of you, not to back down and want to turn around, but to face it head on and say, I can go through it because God is with me. God is big, people are small, not the other way around. This is a kind of faith that knows you're in good hands no matter what comes, even if you face unemployment. Even if that skin biopsy comes back malignant, even if you battle with depression, even if you're of nightmares of abuse in the past, come up, this kind of faith says, God will be with me and I will overcome because he is with me. And it's valor, faith and valor. I like that word valor, right? Courage, bravery. They're not afraid of the Canaanites. And they're not afraid of this big mob that's about to try to stone them. That's confidence, courage, valor. It's like Ephesians 6 says, be strong in the Lord in the strength of His might. And we should have courage like this. Even if everyone else is against us, even if everyone else says you're fools for being Christians, you're fools for doing what's right. We say, no, the Lord is with me and I won't back down. This is faith-filled valor, and it's a good example for us to follow Jesus as we go into the promised land with this kind of faith and courage. Well, let's look at what the congregation does. I kind of hinted at it again. The end of verse 10, or I'm sorry, verse 10. The congregation was happy, and they all decided to go into the land. Paying attention? Did you see what happens? All the congregation said to stone them with stones. Not some, not half, but a lot of them. Let's kill Joshua and Caleb. Let's stone them. Now, you know how an angry mob gets riled up and they get violent? This isn't mob being violent, but remember back in Israel, what does stoning mean? It's a penalty for a heinous crime or sin. So all of Israel there said, Joshua and Caleb are guilty. Let's put them to death. They tried to stone them. They talked about stoning them. They rejected the testimony and sermon of Caleb and Joshua and they wanted them dead. Add conspiracy to murder to their list of heinous sins. But then it says, God's glory appeared at the tent of meeting. Now I'm guessing, and I think this is a good biblical guess, that this was to stop Israel from doing this great sin. They're talking about picking up stones to kill Joshua and Caleb, the faithful, strong, and brave spies. God's glory comes down and says, essentially, by being there, no, you will not touch them. That's what's happening here. And then God speaks to Moses. How long is this people going to despise me? How long will they hate me? How long will they not believe me? I've done all of these signs to them just not even too long ago. Sign after miracle after sign after miracle they've seen with their own eyes a year, year and a half ago. But they still want to rebel. They still don't believe. Just because you see a miracle doesn't mean you'll believe. They had hard hearts. They're treating God like dirt. So God says, I'm going to send a plague. I'm going to strike them with pestilence and disinherit them. I'm going to wipe them out like a flood type of a thing. And do something like a divorce. Disown them. Because they rejected me. I will reject them. So basically, pure justice. Again, if you add up all of Israel's crimes at this point, they'd probably have broken almost all of the Ten Commandments, and God says, okay, justice is coming their way. My patience is done with them. And you know what? If you read Exodus 32, God, this was a similar dialogue earlier in the golden calf incident. Read it, Exodus 32, something similar is happening here. Now the last part of this sermon here is when Moses consults God. Look in verse 13 through 19. We won't go through all the details here. But Moses steps up essentially and intercedes. He's a mediator. He says, the Egyptians are going to hear of it then, Lord. The Egyptians that we just came out of, they will tell the Canaanites that we're going into that you brought all these people out here in the wilderness and you couldn't save them. You're weak, so you killed them all. You couldn't bring them in. Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land he promised. Now back in Israel's day here, each nation had like a patron or a sponsor god. So for example, Babylon would have Marduk as their sponsor god, and if Babylon would go into battle and lose the battle, Marduk, their god, would lose fame and probably followers, because he didn't win the battle for them. And Moses is saying, that's what's going to happen, Lord, you're going to lose fame, among the nations, if you don't bring Israel in like you said you were going to do. That's what Moses is saying here. And again, we don't have time to go through it all, but one thing that Moses does is he pleads the power of God. In verse 17, let the power of the Lord be great like you promised. He pleads God's power. Hallowed be your name. And he pleads the promise of God. Verse 17, as you have promised. Just like you promised earlier to bring us in, do so please. He pleads the character of God. Steadfast love, forgiving iniquity, and by no means clearing the guilty. He's pleading the character of God. He's slow to anger, abounding in love. He's merciful and just. And he pleads for pardon. 19, please pardon the iniquity of this people. Forgive them, Lord. Just like you've done earlier throughout the wilderness these last couple years, year and a half. So what Moses is doing here in his intercession is he's pleading the power of God, the promise of God, the character of God, and he's pleading for pardon. It's quite a prayer. So he's saying, based on all of those things, temper your justice with mercy. He knows God is just, and he will by no means clear the guilty. But Moses is saying, mix mercy with the judgment. Forgive them, Lord. Don't wipe every single one of them out, but show them mercy. It's like the psalmist prays, remember your mercy, O Lord, or hear the voice of my pleas for mercy. You've done it before, Lord. Please do it again. Forgive them. John Calvin has a great comment here. He says, The mercy of God continually invites us to seek reconciliation whenever we have sinned. And though the enormity of our sins might rightly make us afraid, still the abundance of His grace will swallow up all dread of His wrath. Meaning, because of God's mercy, we can always go to Him and plead for forgiveness, despite how big and ugly our sins are. We say this in Psalm 51 sometimes on Sunday mornings together. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. So here's this biblical reminder of God's mercy, His steadfast love. If you have sinned, go to him and plead his mercy. Forgive me, Lord. And he answers positively for those who go that way. Remember that, people of God, when you do sin, even if you stumble this week, tomorrow, don't say, I can't pray to God anymore because I've sinned. No, you say, God is merciful. And I'm going to plead his promise and plead his mercy and plead his forgiveness. And you'll find forgiveness. We'll talk about that more in the next couple of weeks. Now, in conclusion then, I'm not going to expand on this, but I would say this text points to Jesus at least in four different ways. First of all, Jesus is exactly opposite of Israel in his life and obedience. Israel, Jesus rather, obeyed God. He trusted God. He never doubted God. Jesus never feared man. He never accused God of any wrongdoing. And because He was perfectly obedient, when we trust in Him, His life saves us. Right? We have His righteousness by faith. And another thing that this text points us to Jesus is by Jesus' courage in the face of enemies and death and suffering. Right? Not my will, but yours be done. And Jesus bravely faced it. for us so that in him we can be courageous to face difficulties. And another way is that, remember Joshua encouraged the people? Jesus encourages you in your walk following him. I am with you, Jesus says. Take his words to heart. All things are possible with God, Jesus says. Take those encouraging words to heart. Don't be afraid. Jesus encourages you. And finally, and we'll look at this in the Lord's Supper in a few moments, Jesus' work on the cross means mercy for those who believe. The mercy here points us to Christ's work on the cross. He got justice, and whoever believes in him gets mercy, forgiveness, salvation, and life. Ephesians 2 verse 4, I'll end here. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, we pray many things after hearing your word and your word preached. We pray that we would be shocked by wicked words and evil, like the leaders of Israel were shocked, rightly. We pray that we would never, O Lord, accuse you of doing wrong, but we would trust that all you do is right and good. We pray that you would give us a faith and a courage like Joshua and Caleb's, that whatever trial that is in our way, by you, your strength and grace, because you are with us, we can make it through. Give us that faith. And we plead your mercy, O God. We have sinned, and the only recourse we have is the mercy of Jesus Christ and the cross in His blood. So show us mercy, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.