God Commands

"God Commands" – Numbers 20:7-12 God commanded Moses to speak to the rock; Moses, worn down by years of complaints and of circling the wilderness, struck it twice. The water came out all the same —mercy did not fail— but the disobedience cost him entry into the promised land. Hence the title and the thesis: God commands, and the trouble lies not in the instruction but in the action with which we answer it. The study follows Hebrews 3:12-19 —unbelief, which is not intellectual doubt but a heart hardening little by little— and ends in Deuteronomy 34, where the book closes by exalting Moses for his faithfulness rather than for his failure.

I. God commands

A. The matter of life is that God commands. And it is true that we all want to be chiefs: the big one, the little one, everyone rules at home.

B. The word is edifying, and it is for every day, not once. As long as you read it, you will be one who knows the Scriptures.

C. Your growth is in your hands: the more passion and effort you give it, the more you will know what to do with your life and how to move.

D. There is much impulse in a person; and one is also subject to many ideas and opinions, including one's own.

E. However long life is, we must stop and beg God to command us. We must learn to let Him be the one who commands.

F. Because you have a list for tomorrow and for the days after; and if you do not have one, you invent it.

II. Moses

A. Moses may be the most spoken-of man on earth: he is not only Israel's, he is known everywhere.

B. Moses alone is enough to learn how great it is that God preserved the word so that we might be taught.

C. So God chooses people, and everything recorded from Genesis to Revelation —how they lived— forms much knowledge in our lives.

D. God commanded him to speak to a rock. If God told you that, you would say God never speaks to you like that; but Moses had a divine contact with God.

E. But Moses was angry with the people, for there was much rebellion: they talked and pulled and shoved, and in the leadership the weariness could already be felt.

F. And he had been at it a long time: it was a few days' journey to the promised land, and they spent years going in circles.

G. So he grew loaded down and heavy, and the hardest moment found him already angry and ready to burst.

H. Who can throw a stone at Moses? No one. Because it happens to all of us.

III. The instruction, the action and the punishment

A. The instruction: take the rod, gather the assembly, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it give water for the congregation and their cattle.

B. The action: Moses and Aaron gather the people, frustrated and angry. The people were angry, and being so, they provoked Moses to anger too.

C. This is no criticism of him: the pressure of a multitude demanding and demanding wore him out. Let whoever thinks himself strong say it: it cannot be done.

D. Because of the complaints he calls them rebels. And instead of speaking to the rock, he struck it twice with his rod.

E. We could judge him; but we would do worse. It is a matter of temperament, of attitudes, of how one thinks and how one was raised.

F. And despite the disobedience, the water came out. There was great thirst and no water: on that rock depended whether they could drink.

G. The punishment: God rebukes them because their action showed a lack of faith and did not sanctify Him before the Israelites; and they are told they will not lead the congregation into the land.

H. God said "speak to it," and he struck it. What happened? He forgot. Because sometimes one forgets.

I. In losing his temper and going with the anger he carried, he did not honour the holiness of the LORD, who was speaking to him; he took no care of the sanctity he stood in.

J. Those must have been the hardest words Moses ever heard. It was enough to die of. And there was no going back.

IV. Not losing what God gives

A. Not to lose the blessings, nor the purpose, nor the opportunities, nor the stages He wants to lead us through.

B. Life is one. And if we throw it away, it does not come back. What is wasted and what is fulfilled are in our hands.

C. And losing is the easiest thing for a mortal. The examples are there: Moses not entering Canaan, or the generation that came out of Egypt in disobedience.

D. That is why we preach faith, obedience, perseverance, humility and dependence on God: that is what helps us walk toward the promises and not get stuck in the wilderness.

E. You decide whether to seek the promises and make them grow, or to go on circling the wilderness. And that can be called lukewarmness.

F. And do not blame anyone else, because the other person does not have it: it is in you.

G. The Holy Spirit stirs, whispers, then speaks, and then an action follows. And that action often turns into clumsiness — like striking hard with the rod.

H. Nor can we live in bitterness, in complaints, or as victims, because we are not. What must be learned is that God commands.

I. And who makes it easy for God to command? You do. When we pray we say "thy will be done"; and what does that do to us? It breaks us.

J. If today you feel stuck in the wilderness, you need humbling and repentance. Why did you get stuck? Because you thought the things of earth were the main thing.

K. And the earth is had today and not tomorrow. But the actions God commands — if those go, there is no more.

V. Unbelief (Hebrews 3:12-19)

A. It is a very strong warning to believers: it uses Israel in the wilderness to teach the danger of unbelief and of departing from God.

B. The heart can harden little by little. The heart is in no hurry to harden: it knows that if it hurries it will be found out.

C. It hardens through the deceitfulness of sin, just as happened to the Israelites who left Egypt and never entered the promised land.

D. "Lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief." And unbelief makes itself comfortable all too easily.

E. A single drop of unbelief deforms the heart, batters and distresses the soul, and kills the spirit. It is a plant with so many roots that it eats away at us.

F. When a person turns unbelieving, the heart has already turned evil. And the only person who can let it in or keep it out is himself.

G. And when it arrives, speech changes. And what one says to oneself is what persuades one: the mind drains the heart, and once it is in the heart it has sown, and that sowing will have a harvest.

H. The warning is that unbelief is not only intellectual doubt: it can become a heart that departs from God.

I. And then we look for someone to blame, and that becomes a chain that binds your life, others' lives, the church, your work and the place where you live.

J. Our communion, if we have the Holy Spirit, is direct: God and you; no one else fits. No brother produces an effect in my life: I produce it myself, if I stop seeking God.

K. When a person has faith that God will come out on his behalf, the body is free of unbelief; and then you are someone whose life God commands.

VI. "Exhort one another daily"

A. Is there anyone who exhorts his children every day? What child exhorts his parents? Is there a wife who exhorts her husband?

B. To exhort is not to correct or rebuke: it is to say to someone "be at peace today," because he is not at peace.

C. It is to exhort in all that is good, just and lovely; it is to make yourself God's spokesman on the earth.

D. That is why believers need encouraging: how often do you arrive looking as though you were owed money and not paid?

E. And when one exhorts and listens, the angels cover and heaven moves; suddenly one says "I am at peace," because an atmosphere is made, and it is miraculous.

F. But we do not call on angels: we call on God, and God from His throne gives orders.

G. For there are things you cannot do: if demons come to destroy you, you do not see them; you feel something is happening. And God gives instructions to the angels who keep you.

H. As for Jacob they ascended and descended. But we do not pray to angels: that is absurd, that is not doctrine. What happens is that heaven is what commands.

I. And the angels also write it down: on the day of the great end the books will be brought out and read, and from that will come the measure of our reward.

J. Let us exhort and strengthen one another before the heart hardens. For the danger of our life is called the heart; and it is one's own.

K. "We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end": we must persevere in faith and not give up spiritually.

VII. They saw miracles and did not enter

A. "Remember when Israel hardened its heart in the wilderness." Even having seen miracles, they went on pulling and shoving and rebelling.

B. The Red Sea opened so they could pass; they could all have drowned, but that was not what the Lord wanted.

C. They were hungry and the manna fell. There was the cloud, and God's fire by night. And many went on murmuring and doubting. And what do we see there? Mercy.

D. "They could not enter in because of unbelief": that was the chief reason.

E. When there is unbelief a person feels he weighs five hundred pounds, because faith is absent; and then the miracles cannot be seen.

F. There are miracles in life; but if the people are short of faith, there are none. And then even grace is nullified.

G. Then we say people do not love us and that people are hateful. And who repels them? We do, because love is absent and unexpressed.

H. Love is not difficult: love comes out. Who holds it back? We ourselves. And that cracks us, and we keep losing instead of giving more each day.

I. One must love and not grow weary; for if I grow weary, whom will I have trouble with? And is it good to have trouble with God?

J. Caleb and Joshua entered because they believed: they said the grapes were large and the fruit a blessing. The others came back arguing that everything there was bad.

K. The promised land stood for blessing, rest, land of their own, and the fulfilment of the promise. And what torments? What is inside us. And who lets it in? We do.

VIII. The end of Moses (Deuteronomy 34)

A. God takes him up Mount Nebo and from there shows him all the land of Canaan.

B. God knew whom He was working with: He was working with His Moses, as a father works with a son, a father who loves. And in that tenderness He said: I will take you; but look.

C. And Moses cast his gaze from Nebo: there was Gilead, Naphtali, Ephraim, Judah, the Negev, Jericho. One single look was what he had.

D. "This is the land which I sware." When God says a thing will be, it will be.

E. "So Moses the servant of the LORD died there." And God Himself takes charge of him and buries him in Moab: He let no one else touch him, and no one knows his grave.

F. He was a hundred and twenty years old; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. He could have entered with his strength intact.

G. Israel wept for him thirty days. He had been deliverer, intercessor and prophet; he was the leader of the exodus, the one who brought the people out.

H. And Joshua took the leadership, full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him. There a new stage begins.

I. "There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses," and the LORD spoke with him face to face: signs, miracles, spiritual authority, the plagues, the Red Sea, the power shown before Pharaoh.

J. "Terrible" in that passage means awesome, imposing, full of reverence.

K. And something very deep about the ending: the book closes exalting Moses, not dwelling on his final failure, but on his faithfulness, his intimacy with God, and his service to a rebellious people.

L. He is honoured in Hebrews 3 as well: "Moses verily was faithful in all his house."

M. And centuries later he appears with Elijah at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-3): they were friends, companions and servants, and came to speak with Jesus knowing He was soon to be crucified.

N. Moses was a mortal, and as a mortal he was close to God. We too can be; and besides, we have the blood of Christ, and in grace one may speak to the Father.

IX. Application

A. Ask God to be the one who orders your life, before you make your own list for tomorrow.

B. Watch the action, not only the instruction: that is where Moses lost the promised land.

C. Do not lose the blessings or the stages: life is one, and what is lost does not return.

D. Watch for unbelief, which is not intellectual doubt but a heart quietly hardening.

E. Exhort someone today: it is not correcting, it is encouraging in all that is good and lovely.

F. And do not stop loving out of weariness, for the one who holds love back is yourself.