THROUGH THE BIBLE - Numbers..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So Numbers chapter 14. 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 the wilderness? Why is it the Lord is bringing us to 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 the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into the 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. And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tenth of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, How long will these 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 it. For you brought up these 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 the 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 these people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, It is because the Lord was not able to bring the people into the land that He swore to give 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 cleave guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers of the children to the third and 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. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word.

But truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these 10 times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despise me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went and his descendants shall possess it. Now since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, how long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me?

I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in the wilderness. And of all your number listed in the census from the twenty years old and upwards, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.

But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in the wilderness, and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land forty days, a year for each day you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure. I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all the wicked congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.

And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land, and the men who brought up a bad report of the land, died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, remained alive. When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.

But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword, because you have turned your back from following the Lord. The Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp.

Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them even to Horema. Amen. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever. What an amazing chapter we have before us here, beloved. Chapters 13 and chapters 14 are really a unit.

They are separated by a chapter, but in fact they are one unit describing the same event of the people of Israel after departing from Egypt and now camped at a place called the wilderness of Paran, my apologies, at Kadesh. They're at the very footsteps at the land of the land that the Lord had promised their father Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They're just to the south of that land. So no doubt it's a very exciting thing for the people of Israel all sitting there waiting camped in anticipation that they're going to be given the land finally that they've been waiting for for many many centuries. So in that place last week we saw that 12 spies were sent out one from every tribe leaders of their community These are men who were rulers were men of renown among their tribes They were sent to spy out the land and then come back with a report of what they had seen in the land of Canaan It was an exciting time for everyone and no doubt no doubt that excitement and was for 40 days as the spies were away for 40 days, but it continued even beyond.

And when the spies had come back, the people remained excited for a very short time only. Because for the 10 of the 12 spies, they came back with a report that wasn't very pleasant. You see, there was two things, really, that essentially they were meant to do when they were sent to spy out the land. The first was to survey the land, to come back and give them a report about what they saw insofar as what the land contained. And the second thing they were to do was to come back and give a report about the occupants of the land, the cities, the dwellings, and so forth.

The first was no doubt pleasurable. The second drove fear into the bones of the congregation of Israel. Because back in chapter 13, verse 27, the first thing they say is this, when they come back, they say, we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. In other words, the Lord wasn't exaggerating when He said the land was fertile, was pleasant.

It had the best land. It was flowing with milk and honey. It was a blessed land. Yahweh wasn't exaggerating. It's all that He said it would be.

Look at the pomegranates that we brought back. Look at the figs. Look at that single cluster of grapes that has taken two of us to carry over the border. This land is definitely a blessed, blessed land. And in the chapter that we read this evening, Joshua and Caleb described the land you may remember as exceedingly good.

Verse 7. I don't want us to breeze past that point without feeling the weight of those words. Exceedingly good. These men had already had high expectations of that land. This land that God had promised centuries earlier had, in their mind, been a land like no other.

And they had very high expectations. And here you have Joshua and Caleb, and even the other spies, not a word to say, negative to say, about the land itself, but even to say, it is better than we thought. It is exceedingly, exceedingly good. A true testimony, beloved, of the truthfulness of God. a true testimony, the fact that God speaks and promises.

He doesn't exaggerate. In fact, when you see the promise come to fruition, it's better than you thought. The things that the Lord blesses us with are far better than we can ever perceive or imagine. Even when we read those promises, we may be bewildered. We may be thinking, this is surreal, this is unbelievable.

Can it be? Beloved, this is testimony. Not only can it be, it's better than what you and I can ever imagine. The excitement of those words for the Israelites wore out fairly quickly because the second thing these ten spies had to say was this. Verse 27 of the previous chapter.

We came to the land which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey and here is its fruit. However, that dreaded word, however, breaks the positive into the negative. The people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. Okay, so Caleb at this point interjects and says, but we can take them.

We can overpower them. We can take this land. Then the ten spies come back and they begin to exaggerate. I'm not going to explain it because we explained it last week. But they exaggerate what they saw.

And they utter some very destructive, faithless words to the people of Israel to instill fear into their hearts. We are not able to go up against the people, they say, for they are stronger than we are. Such discouraging words. You sent us in the land. You sent us to give a report of the land.

Well, here it is. We can't take these people. Their men are too big. Their armies, they're too strong. Their cities are too fortified.

Look at us. We're not an organized army. They are. We have no chance against them is what they're saying. Let's abandon this plan.

Let's move on to plan B. That's essentially what they're saying. So what is Israel's response now? Do they believe? First one.

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry and the people wept that night. They wept. They swallowed up the words of the 10 spies. Look, they looked at themselves and they looked at the army, the 600,000 plus men who are not battle-trained and they heard the report that came back from the land and they figured out they're right. We can't take them on.

And so they'll grip with fear and they'll grip with despair. Of course they should be. Of course that would be the natural response when comparing the size of the Israelites and the experience and the fact that they're not battle-trained or ready like the men and the armies in the land of Canaan. Of course it would lead them to despair. I said last week, if there is any time or ever a time that you look to yourself and only to yourself you will inevitably land in fear and despair.

That's the inevitable outcome when you look to self. You know why, beloved? Because there's always going to be someone smarter. There's always going to be someone bigger. There's always going to be someone stronger.

And if your hope is placed in yourself and your own abilities, your own intellect and your own strength, you will be always driven to fear and despair. And that's exactly what these people are experiencing at this point in time. Never mind. Never mind they witnessed firsthand the supernatural might of the hand of the Lord like no other nation in the planet. In the last year or so, what have they witnessed?

Beloved, we've been through this journey. We've been walking through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and now we're in Numbers. We've walked through that journey. We've seen what these people have experienced at the mighty hand of the Lord. Did they?

Did they themselves defeat Pharaoh's army? Was it them who took on the world-renowned might of Pharaoh's army? Did they take them on and defeat them? Or was it Yahweh? Did they part the Red Sea to walk through on dry land when they were backed against the sea and the army was before them?

Or was that the mighty hand of the Lord? Both seem to be impossible. Both accomplished by God. What about manna in the wilderness? Did they bring that forth?

What about when they thirst, and the water that came from the rock to satisfy their thirst? Was that their own ability, their own strength? Or was it Yahweh? What about when they desired meat, and He gave them quail? Was that their own doing?

Not at all. Not at all. It was Yahweh's doing. It was the Lord's doing. And over and over again, He's shown them His faithfulness.

over and over again and his faithfulness was poured out upon a undeserving people. No excuse. No excuse given to them and beloved there is no excuse given to us. They saw the manifest presence of Yahweh. His presence was with them always.

Above the tabernacle was the cloud permanently. And when they went and set out from camp, that cloud led them through the day and the pillar of fire by night. There was no excuse to forget that the mighty hand of the Lord was among them. But beloved, these people did what is so natural for sinful human beings to do. And I can say this with some level of authority because I am a sinful human being.

When trouble and tribulation comes, the natural inclination of our sinful desire is to abandon the Lord and to look to self. And that, beloved, is called this or unbelief. So quick to forget about the Lord. So quick to forget about his faithfulness. So quick to forget about what he had done for them.

That he rescued them from the hands of the evil pharaoh and the slave masters and the evil taskmasters. So quick to forget about all the miracles to sustain them over the year plus. So quick to forget. And they cry out and they weep that night. There's an emotional outburst, a self-pity.

Why? Because they're looking to self. They've already made up their mind, we're a defeated people. How can we take on the Canaanites and the Amalekites and the Jebusites and the rest? How can we?

But was it over? Did they have their whinge and get that out of their system and then wake up and come back to their senses? Is that what our text tells us has happened? No, they grumble and they complain against Moses and Aaron. Moses!

Who is this Moses? You remember what happened at Sinai? When Moses was on the mount before the Lord and he came back. What were the people doing? Reveling in idolatrous, licentious sin.

You remember what Moses did? He went and pleaded before the Lord. He interceded before the Lord. He was the mediator before the Lord and the people of Israel. Apart from Moses intercession, these people would have been crushed under the weight of the wrath of God.

They grumble. They grumble against. Moses. They grumble against Aaron. They grumble against Caleb and Joshua.

They grumble. They grumble. We don't care about the past. Right now we're confronted with a difficulty, a tribulation, a trial. Right now we're angry and we're going to take it out on you Moses.

The truth of the matter is their grumble is not actually against Moses. It's against God himself. Because they're rejecting the Word of God. They're rejecting the promise of God that stood for centuries and has over and over been shown to be faithful. The fact they exist in the multitude that they are is evidence of God's faithfulness.

No, they've rejected God. Beloved, I stand here to tell you that is the ugliness of sin. that when one falls into sin, the sin of unbelief, you begin to point your finger at the good thrice holy God who is eternally faithful and you begin to grumble and complain against Him. Now we've seen that it's been a cycle. This has gone on for a while now.

It's a cycle from the time these people have departed out of Egypt Every time they grumble and they complain, it's against God, but it's directed at Moses. We can testify to that. Moses, we're hungry. Moses, we're thirsty. Moses, we want meat.

Moses, you brought us out here to kill us. Moses, there's no way for us. Moses, we want to go back to Egypt because we want the cucumber and the leeks and the garlic and the watermelon that was back there. Nevermind we're in slavery. Nevermind there was no rest for our bodies.

We want to go back there because we want to fill our bellies with that food. Not this manna that the Lord's provided. Every time the Lord had provided for them, and had provided in abundance, daily, their provision. But when a simple sign of the next tribulation confronted them, they begin to grumble again. Now, I would normally apply that to our lives, but I don't think I need to.

I don't think I need to. I think we all understand what that grumbling and that murmuring and that complaining looks like in every one of our own lives when we're confronted with difficulty. So I won't add to that. Later in the chapter, in verse 22, in fact, the Lord himself mentions that it's ten times. Ten times, he says, that these people have put me to the test.

Ten times. Did they learn on the tenth time? No, they don't. Instead, they say that it would have been better for us to die in Egypt. It would have been better for us to have died in Egypt or even to die now than for us to go and confront this formidable enemy and be taken over, our wives and our children, to become prey to the Canaanites.

You see, they've made up their mind. We're a defeated people. We have no chance. And beloved, that tells us one thing and one thing only. These people are still looking to self.

They're not looking to the Lord God Almighty. They're looking to self. They've quickly forgotten about the Lord, forgotten about His mighty hand, forgotten the fact that there's no nation, no person, no army that can stand before the Lord and defeat Him. This is an insult. to the God of creation, the eternal God of the universe, the only true God, the God of Israel.

This is an insult to him, but they've made their mind. We want to return to Egypt. We want to return to Egypt. Imagine that. We know Moses, Aaron and Caleb and Joshua won't be in it.

So we'll stone them to death and we'll elect another leader, a leader who is willing to take us and lead us to Egypt, a leader who will do what we want him to do. That's what we want. We want to go back to Egypt and we'll elect someone who will take us back to Egypt because we know what is right. We'll take our chances. We'll take our chances back in Egypt.

We'll take our chances with the new pharaoh. Surely he'll embrace us with his loving arms. Beloved, read what is behind those words. When the people of Israel say, we want to go back to Egypt, read what is behind those words. Remember how their lives were back in Egypt.

They were slaves. They had no rights, no rest. Their worship was the same of the Egyptians. They were worshipping false gods. They were pagans like their neighbours.

They had no intimate, covenantal relationship with the God of the universe. They didn't know His law which is a delight to the heart. They didn't know His presence that is glorious. And they look back and they say, we've experienced you Yahweh. We've experienced your faithfulness, your hand and your kindness.

But we don't want you. We want to turn our back. And we want that. Take us back to Egypt. Take us back to Egypt.

But we know Egypt, just like Babylon in the word, in the Bible is many times spoken of as a metaphor for what? Sin, world, depravity. What are they saying? What are they saying? They've rejected the Lord because they want to embrace their sin.

Take us back to the world. For if we go on sinning, deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there is no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Hebrews 10, 26, 27. We didn't like the light of Yahweh. We wish to return back to the darkness.

Now that, beloved, is a scary place to be. And since, as I said earlier, Moses and Aaron and Caleb and Joshua, they're not going to be part of this, we'll get rid of them and we'll elect someone else to do our dirty work. What a scary place to be. To reject the only God of the universe. to go back to wallow in the mud that once was.

At what point does that appeal to the human heart? At what point does what they were experiencing in Egypt appeal to the human heart? Name me one positive. We'll give up all that is good and righteous because we're afraid. to go back to that lifestyle.

Beloved, that is the natural heart apart from the grace of God. But before they can enact their evil intentions and stoning their leaders, the Lord intervenes, verses 11 through 12. And we read of the judgment of the Lord before Moses And basically the Lord's saying, hey, I'm going to extinguish this people. This people is going to be extinct. And I'll start again, but I'll start again through you, Moses.

And then Moses says, we've seen over and over again is the mediator between God and the people, a sinful, depraved people. And then he added some words in verse 13 onwards, which are beautiful words. And we don't have time this evening to look into for the sake of time. But I do want to say that at the heart of what he says, if you look down on your on your Bibles, you'll see that he had at the forefront of his mind the glory of God. This is a man who is zealous for the glory of God.

He had a holy zeal. The holy name of God is not to be trotted upon, he's saying. He doesn't wish that God, Yahweh's name, would be blasphemed among the Egyptians and those they gossip to, so that their evil and filthy mouths would speak ill of the God of the universe, the God of Israel. Lord, don't do this, for your name's sake, is what Moses is saying. Sure, he has a love for the people, but his zeal and his heart is righteous.

It's for the name of God. The perfect and pure name of God needs to be upheld. God forbid they speak, the nation speak ill of Him and say that you didn't have the power, that you were impotent to bring the final deliverance of your people and give them the land that you'd promised. Lord, just do what you've promised to do. Beautiful.

It's a beautiful thing. We haven't got time to go into it. But I want to mention quickly the last verse. The last verse is verse 19 of Moses speaking to the Lord. He says, In other words, what Moses is saying is, You know us.

You know our hearts. You know our sinfulness. You know our nature. You know our unbelief, Lord. It will depend on you and you alone, on your love, your steadfast love and your continual forgiveness.

Our existence depends on you continuing to be you. That God will continue to be a loving God, a God who forgives. Apart from that, we perish. The moment you stop loving us, the moment you stop forgiving us, we perish. What a beautiful word.

So Yahweh, He holds back His wrath. He doesn't extinguish the nation of Israel from existence. if I will continue to exist but the adult generation apart from Caleb and Joshua we're told will endure 40 years in the wandering wandering in the wilderness and their bodies will be scattered across the desert wasteland over that time and their children are the ones who will inherit the land not them now beloved do the math how many people are there now think about 38 more years to go how many are dying multiples are dying every day and every time a life dies they're reminded This is because we rejected the God of life. This is because we rejected the only one of whom life can be given. And therefore, if he is the only one that life can be given and we turned our back on him, then we deserve.

We deserve death. We deserve death. What a lesson. And then the Lord sends a plague. And that plague destroys the ten spies that gave a bad report before the congregation.

Another lesson of what is deserving of those who blaspheme the promises of God. But does Israel learn her lesson? Does she truly repent of her sin and return to the Lord? Well, verse 39 tells us that they mourned greatly. That's the word we have in our ESV.

They mourned greatly. And we know that's a pretty good sign, because if you remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Sermon of the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, you remember He says, Blessed are those who, what? Mourn, for they will be comforted. These people not only mourn greatly but acknowledge to have sinned also. Verse 40.

These two things are good. They're mourning greatly and they've acknowledged sin. So did their mourning and did their confession equate to true repentance? Did they really repent of their depraved ways and now turn to Yahweh in true repentance and faith because of their unbelief? Have they turned?

Have they turned from rejecting the word of God and rejecting the promises of God in disbelief? Well, we don't need to speculate because we're told. And their actions speak louder than words. All encouraged, all zealous now, that the next day they wake up in the morning and they say, hey, we thought about it. We're going to start the conquest.

We're going to go and we're going to fight like the Lord wanted us to fight. But it's too late. God has said that's not going to happen. God has already said he's going to give them over to death in the wilderness and it's their children who will inherit the land. It's not up to you people to decide God's ways.

God decides God's ways. It's up to you to obey. His ways are good. True repentance would equate to true obedience. But these people have not taken their eyes off themselves.

They may have given one another a pep talk, encouraged one another, we can do it, let's do it, and they've gone out there thinking they can indeed do it. The Lord has already said back in verse 25, no, Moses, tell the people to turn to make an about face. You're not going north into the promised land. You're going to go south by the way of the Red Sea. That's where you're going to go.

Because I've made up my mind, true repentance, even though God's judgment is being poured upon these people, true repentance would be we submit to the way of the Lord. We submit to the word of the Lord. We'll submit to the promise of the Lord. And if that means we do an about face and we die in the wilderness, we will die under the grace and the mercy and the faithfulness of our good God, because He's a God who can forgive. But this is not what these people were doing.

They couldn't accept what comes from the hand of the Lord. Instead, they flex their muscle and say, we can do it. And so Moses warns them against it and says, no, no, God is not going to be with you. He's not going to go before you. You'll be defeated.

The ark will stay and Moses will stay. And what do they do? We're going anyway. wise in their own eyes. And beloved, anytime someone is wise in their own eyes, that is recipe to fall.

Because as our brother said the other week, in the same chapter in 1 Corinthians 10, that speaks of this occasion, we're told, be careful if you think you can stand, lest you fall. So they do. They get up, and they think that they can do it, and they presume upon the grace of God. We're told that word here, presume. They presume.

And they go, and they go into battle. And actually, the word used here for presume in your ESV Bibles is only used one other time in the Old Testament. It's interesting. It's used in Habakkuk, and there it's translated, proud. Lift it up.

Swell up. There is an immense amount of pride going on here. The presumption is pride-filled presumption. In other words, we can do it. We can do it.

And so they're making much of themselves and they progress. Beloved, this is sad. And every time we speak about the occasion, about the people of Israel in this generation, I always say the same things. I say, it's easy for us to look back and point the finger and say, oh, so bad. We're not that bad.

And I don't want to sound like a broken record. But beloved, if we were there, apart from the grace of God, we would be. We'd be no different. Apart from a regenerated heart, we would be absolutely no different, but we can learn lessons. These things have been written for us for our instruction and as examples.

1 Corinthians 10 tells us that they're an example for us. How? Now, do we look back and say, we need to try a little bit better and try a bit harder? We need to be more holy? We need to be more obedient?

Yes, there is a place for true holiness and the pursuit of the holiness, but this is not a lesson in morality. No. No, because when we look back, there's something else that should be in our minds. Something else altogether. Because when we look back at these people, we find that people who are sinful by nature, just like us, are people who are broken by the fall.

are people who desire the things that are contrary to the command of God and the law of God. And if God has given them the law and says that they would obey that law in the covenant he gave them on Sinai, And instantly they break it and they continue to break it. And in the words of Moses, he's told, Lord, continue to forgive like you've been forgiving since you've got them out of Egypt. In other words, that forgiveness cannot end. So beloved, it means that if these people are going to be taken out of Egypt and make it to the promised land, it will not be, hear this, it will not be according to their own merits.

Because if the righteous demands of God are pure and holy, and the standard is perfection, nothing short of perfection can enter into His presence. We've seen that in the book of Leviticus. Then we can safely say that none of these people are worthy in and of themselves to make it into the promised land. Which means that in and of themselves, by their own strength, their might, their intellect, their power, they cannot make it into the promised land. So what sort of example are they for us, like 1 Corinthians 10 tells us?

Beloved, I submit to you, it's not simply to look back at this generation and say, let's do better, let's try harder. But it's to look back at Israel and remember true Israel. Who is true Israel? Who is the one who is deserving of the favour of God? Who is the one who has accomplished all righteousness, the law of God in perfection?

He's the one. It's Jesus Christ. He's true Israel. He was baptized not in the Red Sea, but in the Jordan River. Sent into the wilderness, not for 40 years, for 40 days.

He too had no drink to drink. He had no food to eat. But he didn't crumble. And he didn't complain. Trials and tribulations came from every direction.

Temptations came his way. But he did not test the Lord God. These people were told ten occasions tested the Lord God. Yet Jesus never tested the Lord God. And not only that, when the greatest of all tempters came, the tribulation, the Satan himself came before Jesus Christ.

Do you remember what he said? Thou shall not test the Lord your God. It's unacceptable that we even think about testing the Lord God. And he is the one who has earned all righteousness and made the wilderness trek from Egypt through to the promised land, through to the inheritance, but not one that these people were looking forward to, one that would be given away a physical land in Palestine, Where we're told in the book of Hebrews that it's a rest that they didn't attain, a spiritual eternal rest that none of them attained. Joshua couldn't give them that rest.

We'll find and see. But Jesus can because it's an eternal rest. Because the eternal rest is found in the new heavens and in the new earth. Accomplished because of what Christ has done for those who would one day come to trust in Him. Looking back, We're not to think.

We should try a little harder. Do a little better. Not to go to our loins and just try that. We try to believe a bit more. Try not to fear more.

We don't have the ability to do that. We can only do these things if we're trusting in Jesus Christ. He's the one who can give us new life. He's the one who empowers us by His Holy Spirit. And now we're able to, through faith, Trust, trust, not because we're earning our way into heaven, but because He has done already.

And because He has done already, He calls His people by faith and says, come, be united in me and enjoy the pleasures of the blessings that I have purchased by my shed blood. God the Father is pleased with one person only, with Jesus Christ. And if you're found in Christ, He's pleased with you because you're united with Jesus Christ. Let's pray.