God Is Not With Israel / The Iniquity of The Fathers (Numbers 14 - Part 2)

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross

Till my trophies at last I lay down I will cling to the old rugged cross

And exchange it someday for a crown

Numbers chapter 14. We'll pray and then we'll get into our study. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this evening and everyone who's come out to spend some time in song and fellowship and your word,

Lord. And as we look at the children of Israel and how they responded to the bad report of the ten spies, help us not to be like them in the sense that they got discouraged and they complained.

Help us to be like those who are faithful, men like Joshua and Caleb and Moses, Lord.

Help us not to get discouraged when the world wants to bring us down. Help us not to give in to that temptation.

But again, we're thankful for you bringing us here and just bless your word this evening.

We pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Numbers 14. This is going to be part two.

So it's verses 25 through 45. Now the

Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley. Tomorrow turn and move out into the wilderness by way of the

Red Sea. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron. How long shall

I bear with this evil congregation who complain against me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against me.

Say to them, as I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will do to you.

The carcasses of you who have complained against me shall fall in this wilderness.

All of you who were numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above.

Except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun.

You shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.

But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in.

And they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.

And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness 40 years. And bear the brunt of your infidelity until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness.

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, 40 days.

For each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely 40 years.

And you shall know my rejection. I, the Lord, have spoken this.

I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me.

In this wilderness they shall be consumed. And there they shall die.

Now the man whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land, those very men who brought the evil report about the land died by the plague before the

Lord. But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, remained alive of the men who went to spy out the land.

Then Moses told these words to all the children of Israel. And the people mourned greatly.

And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain saying, Here we are, and we will go up to the place which the

Lord has promised, for we have sinned. And Moses said, Now why do you transgress the commandment of the

Lord? For this will not succeed. Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies.

For the Lord is not among you. For the Amalekites and Canaanites are there before you.

And you shall fall by the sword because you have turned away from the

Lord. The Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop.

Nevertheless, neither the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp.

Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites, who dwelt in that mountain, came down and attacked them and drove them back as far as Horma.

I feel like this is a common thing where the majority is usually wrong.

The ten spies, they're the majority here. They have the bad report. It's the two, those lone voices they should have listened to.

And that's just something that's generally true in life, in society, even within Christianity sometimes.

That oftentimes the majority is telling you the wrong thing.

All right, we ended last time in Numbers chapter 14 with the ten spies that gave the bad report, which led to this rebellion against Moses and his authority.

And because of that, the Lord threatened to wipe out the children of Israel and just start over.

But Moses, as the type of Christ, intercedes. Look at Numbers 14, verse 18.

Moses speaking, the Lord is long -suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression.

But he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.

Then Moses said to God, pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.

So last time we talked about God's faithfulness. God made a promise to Abraham and his descendants, and God is going to keep his word.

The ten spies are going to be dealt with. Okay, he does not clear the guilty, but the people as a whole are going to be spared, even though, as we saw, that generation will not be allowed to enter into the promised land, except for two men, which is who?

Joshua and Caleb. Why? Because they had faith. They had faith in God.

They were the two that were willing to do what God said. So Caleb was the one who spoke up.

God said about Caleb, he had a different spirit in him. That's what we want.

We want that different spirit that's different from everybody else.

Now, here's the thing that gets me about this chapter. God said originally, go and take the land, and they said no.

And now God says, okay, fine. Now you're not going to take the land. And as soon as God says no, now they say yes.

So it's completely opposite. But we want to spend a little time, I think, on this question.

Well, the question came up last time about verse 18, and I think it's worth spending a few minutes on.

Verse 18, this statement, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.

So Israel has got out of God's will. When you're out of God's will, bad things happen.

And their sin against God is going to have an effect on everybody else and even on the next generation.

So this statement, where have we heard this before? Exodus. Exodus. Exodus chapter 20, when the

Ten Commandments were given, right? So let's turn to Exodus chapter 20.

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.

So in case someone wasn't here last week, or if someone's watching online, they wouldn't have seen this because it was after the study.

But Marcus had asked a question and gave a brief answer, but I think it's worth looking at it a little more in depth.

So Exodus chapter 20 verses five and six, around that area, speaking about the grave and images or idols, the

Lord says, you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the

Lord, your God, am what? A jealous God. A jealous God. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations.

And this part was left out of numbers. The third and fourth generations of those who hate me.

Now let's turn to Ezekiel chapter 18. Ezekiel 18.

So the old covenant or the covenant of the law, we've talked about this before.

A covenant is defined sometimes as a promise, but a covenant is basically a binding agreement.

You can think of marriage is like a legal contract. That's in a sense, a covenant.

When you sign a contract, that's in a sense of covenant. So it's a binding agreement. And who did

God enter into covenant with? The children of Israel.

So it's the nation, right? So the deal was, if the nation obeyed

God, they'd be blessed. And if they disobeyed God, they would be what? Cursed.

Right. But it's important to point out. I think that the covenant was made with the people as a whole.

I think sometimes when we read the Bible, because we're reading the Bible as individuals, we think of it in terms as God dealing with individuals, which

I'm not saying he doesn't deal with individuals. But here he's dealing with the nation as a whole.

So that's the context. If the nation was given over to idolatry, the nation would be cursed.

So if one generation, the fathers rejected God, then the next generation, the children would end up having to live with the consequences.

But that does not mean that all of the people in that generation were cursed.

Right. So you have to think of it in terms of the people as a whole. The nation would be punished. But not every individual in the nation is punished.

Just to use our nation as an example, because I think these principles are always relevant.

Our nation turned against God. Let's face it. It happened a long time ago. We're just starting to reap the fruits of it.

Our nation turned against God, removed Bible from the schools, removed prayer. We legalized and promoted all sorts of immorality and adopted godless ideologies.

Spending money we don't have getting in conflicts we probably shouldn't have been involved in. And just one thing after another.

And now, after all this time rejecting God, now we are in a complete mess.

And finally, everybody's recognizing it. But who did that? Well, it was the fathers.

It was that older generation that was in power. And now, who has to deal with the consequences?

Right. We do. The children. And of course, we end up being the fathers as we get older.

And that next generation, it just has a way of perpetuating itself. Unless the cycle is broken.

So the nation of Israel may be cursed. They may be punished.

But not every individual in the nation. That's not necessarily true for them.

Same with us. It's a real mess. But as individuals, you can still be blessed by God.

You can still live in God's favor right now. Even though everything else is a total wreck.

Okay. So look at Ezekiel 18 verses 1 and 2. I think this passage in Ezekiel kind of balances things out.

Because we hear about the children having to deal, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.

Here, this is more of personal accountability. Ezekiel 18, 1 and 2 says,

The word of the Lord came to me again saying, What do you mean? This is the

Lord speaking. What do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel saying,

The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.

Who wants to give that your understanding of that in your own words?

The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. What does that mean?

This is a proverb. So this is something that a lot of people in the nation were saying.

Okay. No one's going to take a stab at it. I'll take a stab at it. The fathers have violated their bodies with that which is not good for them.

And now the children are bearing the brunt of, with their teeth set on edge, is to be often times anger or pain that you're feeling.

Yeah. When you set your teeth on edge. You would know about teeth. At least the pain.

Yeah. So in other words, our father sinned and now we have to deal with the consequences.

Basically. And you know, there's a little truth in that. But the Lord did not like this proverb.

He did not want this just repeated because basically they were just blaming everything on that generation before them.

And there's no accountability for it. It's not our fault. It's the people before us.

Well, yes. But we're responsible too. You're responsible as well.

Ezekiel 18, skip down to verse 20 says, the soul who sins shall die.

The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son.

The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself in the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

So one thing you can take away from this, and this is my point, that God is not in the business of punishing you for what your fathers did.

God is not in the business of punishing someone for the sins of someone else, right?

There's personal responsibility. God is going to hold you accountable for what you do that.

Now, the effects are still going to be there from other people, but God is not going to punish you for what someone else did.

Lenny. It's kind of a repeating thing of it. Nothing. Notice that. And that's where we all lie. We keep rebelling, rebelling, come back and come back and keep on going.

Yeah. Every generation ago. Yep. Yep. That's, that's true. And it's, and it's common.

Just, it's always somebody else's fault. You know, it's not my fault. It's, it's, it's their fault.

So he goes on in verse 21, because there's a way to break the cycle.

But if a wicked man turns from all his sins, which he has committed and keeps my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he will surely live.

He shall not die. So even if someone is responsible, if they take responsibility and then turn from their ways, they'll be, they'll be forgiven.

And an individual can be blessed, even though everything else is, is going wrong.

Now, I would say that God is fair in that way, but God is actually more than fair.

God is, God is loving. He's gracious. He's, he's merciful.

Uh, so with that in mind, go back to chapter 14 of numbers.

Does that help clear up the statement, visiting the iniquity of the fathers? So you're going to feel the effects, but God is not holding you personally responsible for what they did.

And you can break out of that, but ultimately we're responsible for our own deeds.

All right. So this older generation of Israel, because of their rebellion, they're not allowed to enter into the land.

Look at verse 29 numbers, 1429, the carcasses of you who have complained against me shall fall in this wilderness.

All of you who are numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above, except for Joshua or except for Caleb, the son of Jafuni and Joshua, the son of Dan.

And this rebellion did affect their children. Look at verse 33 in your sons.

She'll be shepherds in the wilderness 40 years, and they will bear the brunt of your infidelity until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness.

And why is it 40 years? Who remembers why God isn't just picking an arbitrary number.

It's 40 years. Why? Right. So for every day for one year, right?

Well, one day equals one year or every day they spy. I know everyone who was giving the right answer.

It's just, you know, I couldn't discern individual voices. Oh, you must have ADD. Well, I might,

I might. So yeah, the wanderings will be 40 years, one year for each day.

They spied out the land, which they came back. Spies with a bad report, but that generation that was not responsible at all.

That's the littlest children. Remember the, they grumbled down. Now God just let us out here.

So our little children are going to be slain with the sword, which is a slanderous statement against God.

So look at what God says about this verse 31, but your little ones whom you said would be victims.

Them, I will bring in and they shall know the land, which you have despised.

I like that. So their rebellion will be felt by their children, but there's still hope for that next generation.

So the moral of the story is that there's always hope. There's always hope.

And just to wrap up this idea, this is all about the nation.

Remember, this is God in covenant with the nation. So we need to be somewhat careful about taking this as a hard and fast rule that applies to us as individuals.

There's a lot of people out there and I've heard this. There's something called generational curses.

Typically it's more in the charismatic wing of Christianity that you'll hear this, but the idea is if your great grandfather did something really terrible, that God is just curse that whole line.

So all the problems because God is just punishing these individuals for what their forefather did or what their grandfather did.

How many of you have heard of this generational curses? Okay, that's not taught in scripture.

Now the effects of that might be felt, but God is not going to curse you for what your grandfather did.

It's like bad karma on the whole family. Yeah, but that really keeps people in bondage and they bring in an exorcist and have all sorts of hocus -pocus to try to break the curse.

And I just don't think there's any biblical warrant for that. All right, any questions before we move on?

Yes. If you want to go far afield again. Sure, why not? It's in this thing that God says, for I am a jealous

God. Yep. We know that 1

Corinthians 13 says, love is patient, love is kind. And I noticed that the

New American Standard says, love is not jealous. This was an accusation level of me.

I was having marital difficulty because I was jealous of my wife. Yeah. I noticed, after looking at all the other versions, that they all changed it, but I always thought the

New American Standard was pretty solid, but all the others say it does not envy, so I'm not quite sure what the original

Greek was or whether it's worthy of... Do you know what verse it is? Which?

Love is patient, love is kind. 1 Corinthians... 13. 13, 4... Love suffers long and is kind.

Love does not envy. Yeah. Most of the other ones did that, but I remember it, being accused of being jealous of my wife.

Is there a difference between jealousy and envy? Yes. Good question.

According to the translators. So this is a new question, I'm thinking this through in the moment.

We can do it next week. No, that's okay. Jealousy and envy.

So God is a jealous God, but Paul says that, you know, real love is not jealous.

So then how can God, if he's perfect in his love, how can he be a jealous God? And is it okay for a husband to be jealous of his wife?

That's an easier question to answer. What is it, yes or no? Well, of course. Oh, okay.

Of course. You know, if... Oh, well, let's just switch it around, okay? So if a woman is married to a man and that man goes out with another woman on Friday night, she has every reason to be upset about it, right?

So if we're here worshiping God on Sunday, it'd be the same as this, you know, next Sunday you're over at the

Peace Pagoda worshiping Buddha. God's jealous. He doesn't like that. It's totally inappropriate.

Now there's obviously the jealousy that is wrong where somebody looks at someone and they freak out.

That's not right. So you sort of have to define what exactly we're talking about.

But yeah, God is a jealous God. He does not want his people worshiping other gods or having loyalty to someone above him.

And that's right. It's more of a protection. The word is more of a protection and keeping them from those sins.

That's the general meaning of jealousy. Yeah. Yes, Lenny.

Yeah, so I mean, the word jealous, jealousy, it can be good and obviously it can be bad.

So as long as we're defining what we're talking about, I don't see any contradiction with God being a jealous

God and Paul saying love is not envious. It's not envying.

If I come up with anything else, I'll let you know next week. Anyone else have anything to add? Well, I was going to add an off the topic sort of, but really the generational thing.

Yep. Is it, is anybody, I'm sure everybody's heard it said the greatest generation was the generation that won

World War II. Yep. And my answer to that is don't stand around worshiping that generation.

Honor the deeds that they did on the battlefield and that, but they're the generation who gave us every sewery thing that you were talking about in the list of this country going down the slide.

Those are the fathers. Those are the fathers who let the 1960 brash kids go awry and authorized it in law.

Right, right. Very, very good point. Yeah. And now we're just in the downward spiral.

So if you think things are bad now, wait five or 10 years. Hopefully the Lord comes before then.

I don't want to see it, but we need to be, we need to be prepared because as long as he has us here, we're here for a reason.

We have a job to do, but if the Lord came tonight, that'd be okay too. Yeah. All right.

Anything else? Very good point. All right. Let's move on then. Look at verse 25.

Now we're getting into this whole thing where God said, take the land. No, we can't do that.

Okay, fine. Now you're going to die in the wilderness. Oh, let's go take the land. Numbers 14 verse 25.

He says, now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley. Tomorrow, turn and move out into the wilderness by the way of the

Red Sea. So instead of continuing North to enter into the land, God says, no, you're going to go backward.

You know, you're going to take a turn. You're going to go back into the wilderness. That's what you want. That's your punishment. You refuse to enter in, have it your way.

So look at verse 32. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.

Verse 35. I, the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me.

So they were against Moses and what Moses wanted, but ultimately they're against God. In this wilderness, they shall be consumed and there they shall die.

So God has spoken this. It's going to happen. But just like before, they're just not listening, right?

This is the whole problem. Not listening to God. We have it so good where we have a

Bible. You know, everyone has their own copy of the word of God. You can open it and read it.

But that, that makes us responsible now because now we have it and we know what it says.

And now we, now we need to listen to it. So again, this is the punishment upon the nation, but not on every individual in the nation.

So we already know Caleb and Joshua are, these are men who are favored by God.

Yeah. At the same time, Joshua and Caleb still have to wander in the wilderness, don't they? I, I don't know if the

Bible really spells it out. I suspect they had it a lot easier and a lot better than some of the others.

They definitely had it better than the 10 spies. So what happens to the 10 spies?

What? The plague, right? So COVID something, something happened.

Yeah. And just one thing, we don't want to make too many assumptions because he calls it the, you know, the evil congregation and they die in the wilderness.

You can't necessarily add two and two and say, okay, that means they all died and went into eternal punishment.

Like that's not even really in the conversation here, is it? And I always say that because again,

I'm sure there were many individuals, not just Joshua and Caleb. I'm sure there are many, many

Israelites who love God and wanted to obey. They just kind of get swept up in all of this.

So, you know, you can't make some of those conclusions. Yes. Don't you think that God also does sometimes bring one of His own home by way of death?

Yeah. Not necessarily because their work on earth is done, except that He knows that they're not going to do any good, but perhaps harm.

Does anyone have a verse or a part? It seems like there was one about the destruction of the flesh, but I...

Right. Paul says, hand them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that their spirit might be saved in the day of the

Lord Jesus. Do you know where that is? Yeah. It's in 1 Corinthians 5, I believe. So the idea is that when someone, they're genuinely saved, but they backslide, they get into gross sin and God knows they're not going to turn and He may say, okay,

Satan, have your way with them, and they might die. Well, God still holds the keys to death and hell.

Satan can't destroy anyone. Right. But I'm just saying, doesn't

God sometimes... You know, I mean, obviously when our work on earth is done, He's going to take us home, but if He knows that we're not going to...

If we're going to do more harm than good, if we're going to lead a lukewarm or backslidden life the rest of our life and do more harm to our own testimony and to the

Lord's... And it would be a gracious thing. It might take you home, yeah. It might be a gracious thing to take you home before you go too far.

Right, right. I do believe God does that, and this is just my...

The way I look at discipline, because that verse is in, I'm pretty sure 1

Corinthians 5, that's church discipline on the man who is involved with his stepmother. He's kicked out, put out of the church.

If somebody is disciplined or they backslide from God and their life just goes...

Things get worse and worse and worse for them. I tend to think that person is actually saved.

That person would be more likely to be saved than the person who backslides, turns away from God and they live the rest of their life trouble -free.

I'd be more inclined to think the person where things got a lot worse, because that's God's chastening. Whom the

Lord loves, He chastens. Right. And He does that, the destruction of the flesh, so to wake them up, that their spirit might be saved.

So if there's anyone watching who's backslidden and your life has gone down the tube since you turned away from God, get right with God and maybe things will improve.

All right, anything else? Yeah, Jim. I saw this when I read two numbers verse 25, it says, and it's in parentheses.

Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley. End of parentheses.

Tomorrow turn you, which means avoid the Amalekites, avoid the

Canaanites. The Amalekites were the ones, the first ones that the Jews came to and wanted to go through the land and the

Canaanites came out against them, wouldn't allow them to go through the land.

The Canaanites are the ones that are in the land now and this generation that it's following for 40 years cannot go in there to see them.

So really what that, those few, that parentheses is is avoid them. They didn't know it themselves and God's saying, don't even go there.

Yeah. I thought that was kind of interesting because it's in parentheses and then nothing else is mentioned.

Although when you get into Deuteronomy, it does talk about it. All right.

We'll be in Deuteronomy at some point, Lord willing. Dad? The verse you were looking for in 1

Corinthians chapter 5 is in fact verse 5. Okay. All right.

So it is in 1 Corinthians 5. Okay. Yes. All right. And that in, you know, to some people that sounds harsh, but that's

God's love towards his children. You know, all whom the Lord loves, he chastens, right?

All right. So the nation is feeling the effects, but God is not necessarily plaguing individuals except for the 10 spies.

They do receive of a plague. Look at verse 36. Now the men who Moses sent to spy out the land who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land.

And those very men who brought the evil report about the land died by the plague before the

Lord. But Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

Okay. So the Hebrew word translated plague, it could be translated, you know, basically

God smote them. Maybe that's the, I don't know if that's the King James. That sounds like a King James word.

God smote them. But it basically has the idea that God struck them dead. Unless that sounds like an

Old Testament thing, that happens a few times in the New Testament where God smites somebody and they just drop dead.

I can think of at least three New Testament examples of when that happens. Who knows those examples?

Because there's somebody out there thinking, well, that's in the Old Testament when God was more angry.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ananias and Sapphira, and then there was one non -Christian who was struck.

Eaten by orcs and died. Yeah, who was that? One of the Herods. Herod, right. Herod was struck in Acts chapter 12.

King James says, verse 35 of King James says, I the

Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil generation that are gathered together against me in the wilderness, and they shall be consumed and they shall die.

Okay, okay. Thank you. All right, so the spies are dealt with severely.

And just these little details that said they died before the

Lord. What does that mean they died before the Lord? Well, because when they stirred up the people and the people were like, okay, stone

Caleb and Joshua to death. God hears this and God comes down in the cloud.

So God comes down and he kills the spies. He puts down this rebellion against Moses.

So they died before the Lord because the Lord was present in the cloud.

Verse 39, then Moses told these words to all the children of Israel and to all the people and they cry and they moan.

And it's sort of like they are sorry, but they're not.

Yeah, they're not sorry that they disobeyed God and that they offended God. They're sorry that now we got to deal with the consequences, right?

So this is not a genuine form of repentance. This like you said, it's we're sorry because we got caught, right?

All right, then I have a whole bunch left but we're running low on time. So skip to verse 41.

And Moses said, now, why do you transgress? Because now they want to go into the land when

God says no. Why do you transgress the command of the Lord for this will not succeed.

Don't go, you're not, this is you can't win. Don't do it. He says in verse 43, because you have turned away from the

Lord, the Lord will not be with you. Of course, Moses and the Ark remain put.

Look at verse 44, but they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the

Ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp. So this is still kind of a rebellion, right?

They're not looking to overthrow Moses. They're just going off on their own. So in conclusion, they're not breaking the cycle.

They're just piling one wrong upon another, not walking in God's will because they're not walking in God's will.

What they're doing will not, it cannot succeed. The only solution at this point, it's the only solution ever when things are going wrong, when there's disobedience, is true repentance that we're actually sorry that we sinned against our creator.

That's the only true form of repentance. Look at verse 45.

We'll close with this. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them and drove them back as far as Hormuz.