Don’t Loose an Opportunity to Obey God!

“But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.  Then you replied, "We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God commanded us." So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country. But the LORD said to me, "Tell them, 'Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.'  So I told you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the LORD's command and in your arrogance you marched up into the hill country” (Deuteronomy 1:41-43).

                The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). And everything that does not come from faith is sin (Rom. 14:23).  When we do not believe in God, we disobey His commands.  And when we disobey God’s commands, we tend to complain because there is dissatisfaction in our hearts.  We even grumble toward God.  As a result, God disciplines us.  When we get discipline by the Lord, we must humble ourselves and repent our sins.  And we must bear the fruit of repentance.  We must obey God’s commands because there aren’t always opportunity for us to obey Him.

                The Israelites did not trust in the Lord their God (Dt. 1:32).  Although in the desert God carried them, as a father carried his son, all the way they went until they reached “this place” near the promised land of Canaan (v.31), they didn’t believe in God.  Although the Lord, “who is going before you (them), will fight for you (them), as He did for you (them) in Egypt, before your (their) very eyes” (v.30), the Israelites didn’t trust in the Lord their God.  It was because instead of hearing the good report of faith from Caleb, they listened to the bad report from the ten spies who went up to the land of Canaan and came back (Num. 13:32).  Those ten spies made the Israelites to lose heart by saying that “The 'The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there” (Dt. 1:28).  Thus the Israelites were afraid of the people in the land of Canaan.  So they were unwilling to go up to the promised land of Canaan (v.26).  In fact, they rebelled against the command of the Lord their God (v.26).  and they grumbled in their tents and said “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us” (v.27).  Does this make sense?  Did God really bring the Israelites out of Egypt to get destroyed by the Amorites?  Because of the Israelites, the Lord became angry (v.37).  And the Lord told Moses that only Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun would enter into the Promised Land because they followed the Lord wholeheartedly (vv.36-39).  Hearing this, the Israelites replied “We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God commanded us” (v.41).  It seems like the Israelites confessed their sin to God.  But look at what they did.  They put on their weapons, “thinking it easy to go up into the hill country” (v.41) even though God commanded them to turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea (v.40).  If they truly repented their sin of not trusting God and disobeying His command to go up to the land of Canaan, they should have obeyed God’s command of “turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea” (v.41) instead of go up into the hill country (v.41).  You see, the Israelites lost the opportunity to obey God’s command.  So God told them through Moses not to go up and fight “because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies” (v.42).  But they did not listen and rebelled against the Lord’s command and in their arrogance they marched up into the hill country (v.43).  And the result was they came back and wept before the Lord (v.45) because the Amorites who lived in those hills came out against the Israelites and chased them like a swarm of bees and beat them down from Seir all the way to Hormah (v.44).  And God paid no attention to their weeping and turned a deaf ear to them (v.45) because the Israelites didn’t listen to God and rebelled against the Lord’s command (v.43). 

                Like the Israelites, when we do not trust in God and disobey His command, we will loose spiritual battle.  And we will cry out to God in tears.  But God will not listen to our prayer in tears because we have not listened to Him and disobey His command.  And God will discipline us because He loves us.  And when He disciplines us, we must confess and repent our sins.  We must not just say with our lips saying “We have sinned against the Lord” (v.41) and disobey His command (vv.40-41).  If we just confess our sins with our lips, we will “go up and fight … thinking it easy to go up into the hill country” (v.41) even though God told us “Do not go up and fight” (v.42).  You see, the Israelites lost the opportunity to obey Him.  So God gave them a new command which was to turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea (v.40).  But they disobeyed this new command and went up to fight even though God gave them a warning through Moses (v.42).  Like the Israelites, we must not loose an opportunity to obey Him.   We must heed God’s warning.  And we must turn around and obey God’s command.  We must obey Him as we trust in Him.  But when we don’t trust in Him, we will disobey His command out of fearing our enemies instead of fearing God.  And we will grumble toward God in our unsatisfied hearts.  And we will discourage others as well.  We will even cry in tears because of a consequence of our disbelief and disobedience.  But God will not listen to our cries in tears because we have refused to listen to Him and have refused to obey His command.  What must we do?  We must truly confess and repent our sins.  And we must trust in Him and obey His command. We must not loose God’s given opportunity to obey His command. 

As I long to obey His command in faith,

James Kim