Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Numbers 13-14: The Insolence Of Man

"As I live, saith the Lord: According as you have spoken in my hearing, so will I do to you.
In the wilderness shall your carcasses lie. All you that were numbered from twenty years old and upward, and have murmured against me,
Shall not enter into the land, over which I lifted up my hand to make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephone, and Josue the son of Nun." (Numbers 14:28-30)

Thus was the fate of those men and women who distrusted God, turned their backs on Him, and relied more on their own "prowess" to sustain themselves. In Numbers 13 and 14 the Israelites are brought to nearly the gate of Canaan, to what would be their Promised Land. Scouts are sent out to survey the land and bring back information, but the news of the people dwelling there is too much to bear for most of the Israelites. It seems to claim the land promised them by God, they will have to fight and defeat giants and men of superior arms. In an act of cowardice, the men openly proclaim that it would be better to return to Egypt! (Though, seeing as they only survived their journey through the desert because God fed them with manna, one wonders how they thought they'd survive a return journey to Egypt!).

This really was a sad couple of chapters. It was sad in a literal sense because it's hard to see such lack of faith, and yet understandable because they were simply weak humans like all of us. And it was sad in a symbolic sense because this still goes on today, and it's not easy to think about the number of people who may be denying themselves the opportunity to live in eternal bliss with God simply because of a refusal or lack of faith. They'd rather trust in themselves than God. The Israelites didn't like the plan God had laid out for them; they thought it foolish, dangerous, unenjoyable. It's easy to think the same things today. God's plan is usually not the easiest plan, or the most pleasurable plan; but it's the plan that leads to life everlasting. Would that more would trust in it.

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