Turn Around And Set Out For The Wilderness

This morning we're going to be continuing our study of Deuteronomy chapter 1. I think we'll have one more sermon from this chapter and then we'll be on to chapter 2. Last week we saw how the people were filled with fear at the spies report. When the spies came back there was a division that Caleb and Joshua said, we should go in, the Lord will go before us. But the rest of the spies led the people to fear. And the people were overcome by fear and paralyzed by it to the point that they said, our hearts have melted before us. The people are too big. The cities are too strong. We cannot go in. Moses argued with them and pleaded with them about the Lord's faithfulness and providing for them and saying, he's provided for us and bringing us out of Egypt. He's protected us and guided us. Shouldn't we believe that he will go before us still and give to us the thing he's promised us? But the people were unmoved and they refused. Said, but for all of this, the people rebelled against the Lord. That was last week.

This week, our text shows us the Lord's response to their unwillingness to obey him and to go into the land. And my hope is that God will help us to see how we take his grace for granted so that we'll be able to repent and not suffer the consequences as the Israelites did. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord? Excuse me, from Deuteronomy 1, verses 34 to 40. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Then the Lord heard the sound of your words, and he was angry and took an oath, saying, Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it. And to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed the Lord fully. The Lord was angry with me also on your account, saying, Not even you shall enter there. Joshua, the son of Nun, who stands before you,

He shall enter there. Encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it. Moreover, your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there. And I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn around and set out for the wilderness, by the way of the Red Sea. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. This is the sort of passage that takes a little bit of work to understand what's going on here. It's the kind of thing that our natural inclinations, it kind of cuts across the grain of them. It's not the sort of thing that we think really has much application to us. And so I want to say just very generally a description of a summary of the passage. God's people are disobeying him, and he judges them for it. That's the whole summary. Okay?

If you were in Sunday school, we talked about this issue of guilt. We talked about whether Christians should feel guilt. And what we didn't talk about, what I intentionally reserved for the sermon because of the text we were studying, was whether or not God actually disciplines or to what extent he disciplines his people. And I'm afraid that we think too often that once you become a Christian, the discipline's all gone. And I think that there's a fear, at least I feel, in working with my own heart and with yours, that part of my job is always, above all else, to reassure you that you don't actually have to worry that God might judge you. And yet, we come to passages like this and what am I supposed to do? Tell you it's not a judgment? It is a judgment. And as we study through the passage, what you're going to see is that not all of the people were Christians. I mean...

They weren't called Christians now. But that not all Israel was Israel. That many of them were not. But they all thought that they were. And that's the warning of the passage. That's probably the part that's hardest to stomach for us. Is that even as a Christian, we read Scripture and there's parts where we come across where Christians or God's people get judged. in a way that makes it appear that they're not God's people. And then this thing wells up inside of us that's supposed to say, but that's not true. Because we feel like everything will fall apart if we acknowledge that there are people who think they're Christians who in fact are not and are judged as a result. And yet if we're honest with Scripture as we read it, that does seem to be the testimony is that there's actually a lot of deception, a lot of...

misunderstanding, a lot of presumption, and that those sins actually attend Christians and that we ought to be warned by them, by testimonies like this and say, wow, this was not, the presumption that these people had or would have had or that I've had is very dangerous. And it's hard to say it because I'm not trying to say, and the goal is actually that you would live in constant fear. of God dealing with you, that you should always live on the edge of your seat thinking, well, if I do one more thing, God's going to cast me out. Actually, that's not how Christians ought to live. And yet they ought to read these passages and be humbled and consider themselves without saying, well, I'll consider myself up to the boundary of whether or not I'm not a Christian. There are times that you will wonder if you're a Christian as a Christian. And it'll be because of your own behavior.

And it'll be because of the apparent sense, the feeling that you have of God's distance or his lack of provision. This is the hard part of a Christian life. And if you've lived long as a Christian, you will know what I'm talking about. You've felt it. You've wondered, am I a Christian? And you think, am I supposed to wonder if I'm a Christian? Is it sinful for me to wonder if I'm a Christian? Oh, never mind, I'm just not a Christian. Oh, well, I must be a Christian so these things don't matter. And we just kind of like a... Like a ping pong ball. Just bounce around all these thoughts and these difficulties depending on where we're at and who we are and what our temperaments are. And then we come to a passage like this and we're like, I don't want to read it. Because here's God's people. And it opens up with saying, the Lord heard the sound of their words. He was angry and took an oath saying, not one of these men, this evil generation, will see the good land which I promised or swore to their fathers. And so one of the first lessons we learn is that our God judges sin.

That it would be foolish and presumptuous of us as Christians to think that God doesn't care about sin. He really does. He really takes it seriously. He really does judge it. And that we would be foolish to live our lives just presuming that I'm all good with God. That's a dangerous assumption to make. The reason it was dangerous for them to make. Is it always dangerous? No. A tree is known by its fruit. But I'd ask you, what's the fruit of their life? What's the fruit right now of them? It's sort of the culmination of their rebellion and their ingratitude and their anger and bitterness toward God. All coming to a head as they're about to be given the land that they were promised. And they say, no, no, we aren't going to do it. And they've got their excuses and they've got their reasons. We'll actually come to one of them that's in this passage later. But the sum of it all is, we aren't going to do what God said. That's fruit.

And it's important fruit for us to be able to recognize. It's not appropriate for Christians to live in ignorance or in this gray area of like, well, we kind of meant to or we tried to or we hope that it'll change in the future. We need to cut through all of that and say, but did you do, in the end, did you do the thing that God said to do even if it was hard? And if the answer is consistently, no, I didn't, then that ought to scare your pants off of you. we're not new in being able to make excuses for our disobedience. I mean, it goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. What did either one of them offer up except an excuse for why they didn't obey God? Well, it was because of this woman you gave me. Well, it was because of the serpent. Did God go, oh, I see, you were tricked, so you get a pass. No, God doesn't deal with sin that way. In our call to confession, we read that God is a righteous judge, that he's filled with indignation every day.

And so we ought to hear those words and be warned by them. Because God does deal with sin, he does judge it, and that's what he does in our passage here. The people rebelled, and his response was not to forgive their sins, but to judge their sins. Not to give them land. In the end, he said to them, you will not get my land. In Hebrews, he says of them, they shall not enter my rest. They want to enter my rest. They may even feel entitled to my rest, but it's my rest and I won't let them in. So this ought to shake us up. It's scary. The gospel as it's typically presented in and around us, we're taught that there's a God who's waiting, hopefully, for us to turn to him. Because he doesn't want to judge our sins. Because he doesn't want to have to be big and mean. He doesn't want to send anybody to hell. And there are passages of scripture that support that idea.

But that's not the whole story. That story can't make sense of this. Other than we could have a lot of sympathy for how weak the people were and they just couldn't manage to do any better. But then what do you do with Joshua and Caleb? They're just extraordinary people that nobody can actually emulate. They're the weirdos. But I'd say Joshua and Caleb are much more who we should be seeking to be like. We should be wanting to identify with those men and not the ones who are fearful. Because they lived and the others died. So we should say, I want to be like them. Not like all the people with whom the Scripture tells us God was not well pleased. God is not sitting around, wringing his hands, hoping that we'll overcome our weakness. Hoping that we'll find strength to try to do what he's called us to do. Peter tells us that God's given us everything that we need. Everything pertaining to life and godliness.

The Israelites thought they didn't have what they needed to go into the land, but that was a lie. They had what they needed. They had all that they needed to obey God, but they didn't see it that way. They thought there was still more that was necessary, and it cost them their lives, and I would argue their souls. Now, the sentiment that I've tried to describe here of God being this sort of grandfatherly, come on, it's okay, it'll be all right, don't worry about it. It doesn't reflect our theology. If I ask any of us, is that what you actually think God's like? You probably all say, no, that's not what we think God's like. We understand that God's the way you're saying it. And I go, okay, good. What's the testimony of your life? What we say is one thing. What we live is another. Do you ever think, you know what? God would be righteous to send me to hell. That's what David said in Psalm 51. Was it because he was an unbeliever when he said it? I don't think so.

I think he saw his sins and he went, you know what? I know God would be just. He's a judge. He's made me. And because of what I've done, he'd be right to send me away. Like, I would have no argument to make, no place to stand, no counter to put on the scale on the other side to say, well, but maybe. He says, God would be righteous to judge me, to turn me out, and to cast me to hell. That's a really humble thing to say. It sounds like a really miserable thing or a really depressing thing to say. And if that's all that were ever to be said, then you'd be right. It's not all that should ever be said. But the gospel is not sweet to us. And the mercy of God's not real to us if we haven't traveled through that valley. If we're unfamiliar with those sentiments and those feelings, then the gospel's just like, do you want fries with that? Would you like a little Jesus with your life? God's not willing to be thought of and treated in that way.

I think another reason that we question or doubt God's judgments is because they're often not immediate. You've heard people talk about, you know, jokingly saying, well, I'm back away from you because you're going to get struck by lightning. You can't say that. And we just sort of joke about it. And what are we joking about? Well, we're joking about God's judgment. And we're like, God's going to judge you. Well, have you ever seen somebody struck by lightning? You ever known anybody who went to hell? Every one of you knows people who've gone to hell. You've been at the funerals of people that are not Christians.

Regardless of what the pastor or whomever spoke or the family said, you're like, that guy wasn't a Christian. That woman did not believe in Jesus. However good of a person they want me to believe they were, they weren't Christians. So what did God do in that situation? Well, they lived a life of disobedience. They lived a life of rebellion. They lived a life of unbelief. And God's judgment for them was reserved in many ways until the end. And I think that we look at that and we think because God doesn't judge immediately, that somehow the thing that needs to be judged is less severe. Don't kids get this impression with their parents? Like, well, if mom and dad don't immediately deal with it, then somehow it's just not that big of a deal because mom and dad don't care. But if you're a parent, you realize that's not the case, is it? Sometimes you're not able to or you choose not to deal with something in the moment for whatever is going on in your mind that your kids may not understand.

But you recognize it as a problem and one that will be dealt with. So what is that child doing? Well, in a sense, they're storing up the discipline for later. And at some point you come home or you get back from wherever you're at or whenever, and the time comes and you say, honey, we need to deal with this thing. And how does your child respond when that happens, whether that's when dad gets home or when we get back from wherever we're at, and you say, hey, we need to deal with this thing that happened. What's the look on your kid's face? It's this. It's this like dread of like, I thought I got away with it. But as a parent, you go, no, you didn't get away with it. I chose not to deal with it then for whatever reason, but now I'm going to deal with it. And God's the same way with us. Sometimes he deals with our sins immediately. And sometimes he reserves his judgments for a time, for a season, and then deals with them later. Ultimately, in the end, they will all be dealt with. Here, what we're seeing is a judgment that's going to be executed over the next 40 years.

I suspect that there were men over the age of 20 who had just recently died as they were coming back. Some died sooner on in that 40 years. Some died later on in the 40 years. There are accounts with numbers attached to them of scores of them dying at particular times and particular instances. For God's anger and his judgment that he's sworn to here where it breaks out and he says, okay, now. 33,000 of them or whatever, we're struck down, we're dead. But this judgment was executed over a period of 40 years. And so we should not mistake delayed judgment for no judgment, as though there's not a judgment that's been incurred. Just because God doesn't judge immediately doesn't mean he doesn't judge at all. Another danger with the delayed judgment is that when the judgment gets far enough away, we say, well, I'll deal with that later.

I'll deal with the judgment or the consequences later. I think the only reason we think that is because we haven't really taken to heart what the judgments will be, what the consequences will be. You do realize in this passage, in this time, God did not come to them. We have no record of him coming to them and saying, if you don't do what I say and go in and possess this good land flowing with milk and honey, then what I'm going to do is kill all of your men. He didn't warn them that way in the beginning. So was he just in doing it? He was just in doing what he did. They didn't understand the consequences that were coming for their actions. And that's true of all of us. I don't think any of us really feel the weight of our sins the way that we should. I think it's common to man. I think it's one of the features of a fallen nature is that we make our sins small and insignificant. We don't think they're that big of a deal. But then we read passages in Scripture of...

Men being struck down for reaching their hand out to steady the ark. And we're like, what happened? That seems really disproportionate. The response seems over the top. What's going on there is that we don't understand the severity of sin. We live as though there are sins that are worthy of death, but there are really only a few of them, and they happen to be the ones that we particularly don't commit. But it's like, well, I don't struggle with... Fill in the blanks. So that's one of the bad sins. It's how we judge other people. We say, well, you do those things. But the sins that we commit, it's like, you know, they're in a different category. They're just like, they're bad, but we don't see them as even, you know, just one of them being enough to cast us into hell. We're like, well, it's just, you know, it's kind of inevitable. Can God really judge me for that thing? Yes. And those things are judged.

Whether it's you that pays for it or whether it's Jesus that pays for it, every sin will be paid for one way or the other. Here, they pay with their own lives. And so when we read this passage and God's oath against them, not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land, which I swore to give to your fathers. That really is the place we ought to focus our attention. We could just talk about Caleb and we could just talk about... Joshua. But there's scores and scores, thousands and thousands and thousands of men that are coming under this judgment. And we would do well to sit on it, to think about it. God was not wrong when he swore this oath. His anger was not sinful. It wasn't his fault that he had to act in this way. It was the people's fault. They were getting what they deserved. Can we agree?

they were getting what they deserved. When you see people disciplined, whether that's your sibling being disciplined by your parents or an employee being disciplined at work or someone having some bad consequence, can we say they're getting what their sins deserve? In our society, the only people who get what they deserve are the bad people. But there's this double standard where if it's people that we like, then they're not allowed to get what they deserve. God doesn't show partiality the way we do. And so we have occasion to see people getting the consequences of their sins. Have you ever pointed that out to someone? I have as a pastor. I can tell you it's really uncomfortable when you say, well, what did you think was going to happen? This is what happens when you do what you did. And I'm not trying to be miserable to you or tell you I hate you. I'm just trying to say, we reap what we sow, and you've been sowing, so now you're reaping.

Of all the responses you should have, shock and surprise shouldn't be one of them. Like God's word is true, we should believe it is his people. Their rebellion had been growing and gaining strength and mounting up. And God says, no more of it. And he cuts them down. What's interesting in this passage is that Moses gives us one of the most prominent excuses that they gave for not going into the land. They used their children as an excuse. Toward the end, he says, moreover, Moses is addressing their little ones and saying, God's going to give these little ones this land. But listen to what Moses says about how the people described their children. They described their children, Moses says. He says, moreover, your little ones whom you said would become prey. Why would they say that? Why would they say, our children will become prey? Well, they said it because if you make us go into this land, all our kids are going to die because they're not strong enough to go. They're going to be consumed.

Moreover, your little ones, whom you said would become prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, which is just sort of a poetic way of saying are very small, are young, are weak, are vulnerable. Your little ones, whom you said would become prey, and your sons, whom this day have no knowledge of good and evil, shall enter there. And I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. This excuse that they've given is damnable. And none of us would condemn it. I read it, and when I finally realized what was being said, I was like, oh, wow. You mean that having children is not an excuse to get out of doing hard stuff? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I mean, is there anyone here who's not thought, I can't do that because I've got kids? Is there any wife who's not told her husband, you can't do that because...

We have children. People depend on you. Ah, man, there's none of us who haven't done it. But look at what happened to them because they used that excuse. Even that's not an excuse, and here's why. What had God done for them? Well, let me ask it this way. Those little kids they're worried about, did they walk through the Red Sea? How? By God's provision and his kindness. And for them to think, after all of God's faithfulness to them and bringing them out of Egypt with all of their riches and keeping their children safe, that he now in the future wouldn't be faithful to their children to care for them in the same way that he had in the past, is awful. And yet it's so common for us. God can be faithful a hundred times and we will feel as justified as if it were the first time on the 101st try saying, but this time it's dangerous, it's scary, it's worrisome.

Don't use your kids as an excuse for disobedience. That's what they did and it was awful for them. Think of it this way. This is, I think, probably a pretty radical take. I didn't read this in a commentary, but I think that it's true. I think that part of the reason God removed all of their dads was so that the kids wouldn't be corrupted, but rather prepared to go into the land. Their dads were setting them a terrible example. and that God removed that corruption from the land. We would all say, oh, it was corrupting. Oh, it was bad. It was bad for them. But would we go as far as to say it was bad for their kids? They were going to, by their behavior, they were leading their children astray, and God said, you won't do it. I'm going to give those children the land. The ones that you think I won't protect, I'm going to strengthen them, and I'm going to provide for them, and I'm going to give them what you are unwilling to receive. That's something, isn't it?

If you are convinced that God requires something of you and you realize that there's a potential danger for your children, and yet you are also convinced to know that God has called you to it, don't ever use your children as an excuse for not doing it. Does that mean that having children doesn't limit what you're capable of or what you should be doing anyway? No, that's not what I'm saying. But it was very clear in this passage and in the ones preceding it that they were supposed to go into that land. There was no question what God expected of them and what he had commanded them to do. No one was wondering. Everyone was refusing. And one of the reasons they refused was, well, we have little kids. And so if you find yourself in a position where you know that God requires something of you, and you say, well, I can't because that would be too hard for my kids, remember this passage.

if God would protect them as adults and give to them what he had sworn to give to them, then it's not very far to stretch out and say, well, then he'll protect our children too. He has, after all, promised to be our God and the God of who? Our children. Teach your children to trust God when they're scared, doing what you believe he's called you to do. If not, we'll teach our children to emulate our weaknesses and our disobedience and our rebellion. And then we'll be surprised when it comes to, like, bear its fruit. And we're like, where'd you learn that? And it's like, well, I know some of it. God is faithful. He's given you your children to shepherd, to train, to present back to him. And so don't make an idol out of them. Love them and train them and set a good example before them. And don't protect them from God or you'll do harm to their souls in the same way that they would have been doing harm to their children's souls. Now you might be wondering,

All of this talk seems out of tune with how God deals with his people. Doesn't God forgive his people's sins? Yes. So I ask, what can we conclude about these people then? We have to conclude that they were not true Israel. There's a sense in which they were all God's people. But that sense is superficial and external. And that... association or affiliation did not spare them from God's judgment. In 1 Corinthians 10, 5, Paul says, nevertheless, speaking of this particular occasion, nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness. And we say, oh, well, that just means they died. And I'm like, well, what was the land they were supposed to be going into? It's the promised land, right?

It's an Old Testament type. It's an image of something that's to come. It's supposed to teach us to long for it. At their time, it was supposed to teach them to long for and to look forward to heaven. Whether they would have understood that at the time, they would have said, as God's people, we are going to go and we are going to live in God's land with him. We are going to enter into rest. So what does it mean when none of them got to enter into that rest? When he swore to them, in his anger, you shall not enter into my rest. Is he just talking about the land? Part of us wants to say he's just talking about the land. They were all Christians. They're all in heaven. I'm not convinced they're in heaven. There's a narrow path that leads to glory and a wide path that leads to destruction. Can we connect the wires and look at this situation and say, most of those people are in hell? It's really uncomfortable. And yet, it's true. He wasn't pleased with them.

because they were not his children. They were not, in the end, what they appeared to be from a distance. In Romans 9, Paul says this, but it is not as though the word of God has failed. He's talking about the promises to Israel that they would be his people. It's not as though the word of God has failed, for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. Neither are they all children, because they are Abraham's descendants. But through Isaac, your descendants will be named. That is, It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. And so we really have to slow down, slow enough to say, you know, the indicators and the things that I take into account and the judgments that I make, I should not assume that God sees and judges the way I do. In fact, Scripture warns us in another place, in 1 Samuel 16, 7, it says, God sees not as man sees.

For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And so when we look at this passage and we think, everything is good, everything is fine, it's really, really hard, but they're going to be okay in the end. I think that's an unbelieving thought. That is the thought of an unbeliever. They take God as this grandfatherly one who's just like, oh, come on in, it doesn't matter what you did, you're welcome at my table, when that's not what Scripture teaches us about God. He polices his rest with perfect justice. And he has no shame about saying, depart from me, for I never knew you. That's what Jesus tells us in Matthew 24. In Matthew 24, verse 9, Jesus is describing the time when there's going to be a great tribulation, there's going to be hardship, there's going to be suffering. And what he says about that time is he says, at that time, many will fall away and will betray one another and will hate one another.

Where did they fall away from? What did they fall away from? We know where they ended up. We know what they ended up doing. But where were they before they fell away? They were among God's people. And what he's saying in that passage is, when hardships and trials and difficulties come, when obedience is costly, many will fall away. Many who presented and seemed as though they were faithful, will demonstrate that, in fact, they are not faithful. And the reason that they're not faithful is because they're not Christians. How many of them do you think thought they were Christians? I suspect many of them. Self-deception is very dangerous. Telling ourselves that our sins are not that bad because we're Christians is one of the lies that attends the wide path that leads toward destruction. No one on the narrow path thinks their sins are insignificant. No one thinks...

That's no big deal. We can sin so that grace may abound. God will deal with it. Those on the narrow path are amazed at the mercy of God that he forgives their sins. They don't presume that he will because they deserve it. They're humbled and rejoice because of what he did. And so we ought to read this passage and examine ourselves to see that we're not lying to ourselves or deceiving ourselves. As they were. And the reason is because the consequences are very severe. Were any of them Christians? Did any of them believe? Yeah. We're given the testimony of at least two, I suspect three, but two for sure. Caleb and Joshua. They are the two that are set up as those who will go into the land. Speaking of Caleb, the Lord says, he will see it. And to him and his sons, I will give the land on which he has set his foot. And then he tells us why. Because he has followed the Lord fully.

And then Moses, and we'll come to this the next time I preach. It'll be in a few weeks. But we're going to come back to this section where Moses says quite an extraordinary thing in here that we're just not going to be able to get into today, which is, I can't go in because of you. The Lord won't let me in the land because of you. And it's interesting. The Lord doesn't kill Moses in the wilderness, right? Not like all the other people. So Moses is in this other place where he doesn't go into the land like Caleb and Joshua and all the youngers. But he's not killed in the wilderness. God takes him away and he dies and is buried in an unknown place that no one knows where it's at. And for Moses, what I'd argue is he actually entered into the rest without entering into the shadow of the rest. But that the people didn't. The ones who died didn't. And it remains to be seen with those who enter into the promised land how they will behave and whether in the end they will inherit the true land and enter into the final rest.

But of Caleb, it says, he will see it. He and his sons will receive the land because he has followed the Lord fully. We ought to note that Caleb and Joshua, though they were faithful and Christians, they were not spared the difficulty of the wilderness. I think many times we look at difficulties and we think, if I'm a Christian and if God loves me, he's then obligated to protect me from all of the difficulties. My life shouldn't be as hard as the unbeliever's life. And I would say it is different. There's a huge difference between Caleb and Joshua. And it's a really simple, obvious difference. What's the difference between Caleb and Joshua and all the rest of the men their age? They lived. And yet they walked through every valley in the wilderness for 40 years along with the people as all of their friends.

were dying. Caleb followed the Lord God fully. What that means is that he was not only faithful as a spy, but that he continued to follow God during the time in the wilderness. However difficult it got, whatever trials they faced, he remained faithful. One of the interesting things, if you think about just the size of God's people throughout the Old Testament, What we think is that the way God's kingdom, his people, his church, whatever you want to call it, is that throughout time, as time goes on, it just gets more and more and more and more until everyone's a Christian. Is that the trajectory of the size of God's people in the Old Testament? No. No. What did Elijah think when he was hidden off in a cave? What did he think? I'm the only one left. Now, how many were left? Seven.

7,000. That's a lot of people, right? How many people were standing here when Moses spoke? More or less than 7,000? A whole lot more. What happened? Well, for one, we know that a number of those standing there actually wouldn't have been numbered among the 7,000. They weren't faithful, though they were standing there. But that the size of God's people on earth ebbs and flows. It grows, and it gets smaller. And sometimes those who are associated, it grows, but then the ones who are actually Christians is somewhere inside that number. And then it contracts, and what contracts is those who are falling away. And then the real ones, some of them die because they were faithful, so then it contracts. And then it grows again. Caleb, and Joshua, through all of the difficulties and all the sufferings that they faced in the wilderness, they followed the Lord God fully.

How did they follow the Lord Godfully? How were they able? They were special men with special strength. Extraordinary even. God sustained them. That's it. God sustained them. And I think that if you could ask them now what it was like, they would have a very different perspective, I suspect, than they would have had in the moment. I wonder if Caleb and Joshua ever thought, I'm just going to die. It would be better for me. It would be easier for me. I'm tired of this. I can't go on. How many times did Moses say that? Like, can I just die? These people are so rebellious and so difficult and so hard to deal with. Can I just be done? Their work wasn't done. Caleb followed the Lord fully. And Moses was to encourage Joshua. Why? For he will cause Israel to inherit the land. He's the one who's going to lead it in there. And there's this little, like, hat tip. And this would have been a hard... If I were in Moses' shoes, this would have been a strange thing to say because he's about to die. Like, this is sort of his last...

And then at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, we look at it and we're like, well, it's a really long book. But it's this big, long transmission, retelling of the law. And then at the end of it, he dies. So he's near death because he knows, he tells us here, he knows that land you're about to go into it, I'm not going into it with you. He knows his death is imminent. Encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it. Joshua and Caleb were godly men, faithful men that God sustained. And that's our hope. Our hope should not be that we would avoid the hardships and the difficulties of living in a fallen world. If we do, it will lead to our unfaithfulness. That's what it produces. I don't want hard stuff, and I'll give up faithfulness, and I'll give up serving God in pursuit of it, and you'll end up like they did, laid low in the wilderness. But to those who face those hardships and those difficulties head on, their only hope is that God will sustain them and provide for them.

And keep them. And he does just that. Moses is standing there remembering what was said 40 years previous. And who was standing next to him? The guys that he had told them 40 years previous. These guys are going to enter in the land. And there they were with him because God sustained them. And how much would their faith have been strengthened? How much of God's word would have been confirmed? To everyone who was listening, that's what God said he was going to do 40 years ago. And look, here we are. It's exactly how God said it was going to be. Nothing bad happened to them. They didn't catch a thing and die. Here they are because God brought them through it. That's our hope is that God will bring us through the valleys. If we have to go through them, our hope is that God will bear us through them. This is what it means to be set apart, to become more holy. Caleb was faithful. He followed the Lord. And as the hardships got more intense and more of the people died,

The differences between Caleb and the unbelievers became more stark, more drastic, more pronounced. And that ought to be the case with Christians, that as you get older, as you go through more stuff, your God who sustains you ought to be more prominent to you and to everyone who's around you. And they say, how is it that that goes the way it does for them? How is it that you have a happy marriage? How is it that you have faithful children? How is it? that you're generous? How is it that you can smile when you're 40 and 50 and 60 years old? That doesn't just come with age. I'm sure you know plenty of people that as they've gotten older, their trajectory is not to become more cheerful or more forgiving or more hospitable or more gracious, but the opposite. How is it that some people, how is it that Christians become more different over time? How does it they become more different from the world? It's God's work in their life and it's their dependence on him.

And so the things that you're afraid of, many of you are young, the things that you're afraid of now, you worry about your kids, you worry about what to do, and the little things that you're worrying about don't feel little to you. They feel very big to you. As you get older, you will have the benefit. If you continue to follow God, you will have the benefit of seeing God's faithfulness, and then those things will become more proportionate. They won't be as big of a deal as they were before. We joke about with parents and their pacifier, for the first kid, it's like you have to boil it every time it falls on the floor, right? By the third or fourth kid, it's like, eh, here you go. Like, why? It's kind of a funny anecdote, right? And you don't have to be a Christian to get tired of washing pacifiers. But what is it a testament to? Simply that it's going to be okay. That the things you were so worried about weren't worthy of the worry you gave to them.

Because God was faithful. That's the thing the Christian would realize that the unbeliever wouldn't realize is that the reason things are going to be okay is because God's faithful. He's faithful to me. And so I can rest. And I can obey. Because what I can't seem to sort out in my own mind, I trust that God can. And I'm sure that you will have time in your life to prove your faith in God. To demonstrate it. and it'll be the most scary thing because you won't know how it's all going to work out. You're going to feel like, I'm jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, and I feel like I'm just going to go splat on the ground. And somehow, God will save you and sustain you and provide for you, and you will be strengthened. Your faith will be strengthened. So next time you feel like you're jumping out of an airplane, you'll be just a little less fearful.

Every time people died and Caleb and Joshua woke up in the morning, I think that the word of the Lord was probably more confirmed to them and they had more confidence in it. As they saw the time drawing near, their faith was strengthened. And so we ought to be like Caleb and Joshua and not like the others. So be critical of yourself. Examine yourself. Read passages like this and shudder and say, I don't want to be like them. And I know I'm inclined to be. Lord, help me not to be like them. Help me not to make excuses for disobedience. Help me to own my own disobedience for what it is. Without an and or a but. Just, yeah, uh-huh. And I know what it deserves. And Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. The man who beat his chest at the temple and said that, he went home justified. May we be like him. Let's pray.