The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 63: Israel's Rebellion (2024)

Episode Date: March 3, 2024

In our reading of Numbers 14 today, Fr. Mike highlights how the rebellion of the Israelites which was marked by distrust and fear, will have consequences for their children. We also read today Deuteronomy 12, and Psalm 95. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. Today is day 63, and so we're going to be reading from Numbers chapter 14, Deuteronomy chapter 12, and Psalm 95. We'll be praying Psalm 95. As always, the Bible translation that I'm using is the Revised Standard Version,

the Second Catholic Edition, and I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension, which is phenomenal because it has all of the periods divided. It has some notes there that are incredibly helpful. If you want to track down one of those Bibles, you can go to wherever awesome Bibles are sold. Also, if you would like to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. And if you have not yet on day 63 subscribed to this podcast, you can go into your app, which you are using right now, and hit click or punch subscribe, and you will be subscribed. Today, as I said, we are reading from Numbers chapter 14, Deuteronomy chapter 12, and we are praying Psalm 95. The book of Numbers chapter 14,

the people rebel. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the sons of Israel murmured 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 this wilderness! Why does the Lord bring us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another,

Let us choose a captain and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the sons 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 all the congregation of the sons of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear

the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, and how long will they not

believe in me, in spite of all the signs which I have wrought 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. Moses intercedes for the people. But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants But Moses said to the Lord, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to give to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness. And now I beg you, let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,

The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. Pardon the iniquity of this people, I beg you, according to the greatness of your mercy, and according as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even 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, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the proof these ten times,

and have not hearkened to my voice, shall see the land which I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me faithfully, 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 to the Red Sea. God's punishment of the disobedient. And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, How long shall this wicked congregation murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel, which they murmur against me.

Say to them, as I live, says the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and all of your number, numbered from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore 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 a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this 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 days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, 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 this wicked generation that 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, and who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land, the men who brought up an evil report of the land died by plague before the Lord. But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, remained alive of those men who went to spy out the land.

And Moses told these words to all the sons of Israel. And the people mourned greatly. And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, See, we are here. We will go up to the place which the Lord has promised, for we have sinned. But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing this command of the Lord? For that will not succeed. Do not go up, lest you be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are before you, and you shall fall by the sword, because you have turned 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 dwelt in that hill country came down, and defeated them, and pursued them, even to Hormah. The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 12. Pagan Shrines to be Destroyed. Moses continued, These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall be careful to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given to you to possess all the days that you live upon the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills, and under every green tree you shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars

and burn their asherim with fire. You shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not do so to the Lord your God, but you shall seek the place which the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offerings that you present, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

You shall not do according to all that we are doing here this day, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you. But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you live in safety, then to the place which the Lord your God will choose to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering that you present, and all your votive offerings which you vow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice

before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see, but at the place which the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. There you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you. Concerning eating. However, you may slaughter and eat flesh within any of your towns as much as you desire according to the blessings of the Lord your God, which he has given you, the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and as

of the deer. Only you shall not eat the blood, you shall pour it out upon the earth like water. You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grains, or of your wine, or of your oil, or the firstling of your herd, or of your flock, or any of your votive offerings which you vow, or your freewill offerings, or the offering that you present. But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. Take heed that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land. When the Lord your God enlarges your territory as he has promised you,

and you say, I will eat flesh, because you crave flesh, you may eat as much flesh as you desire. If the place which the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or of your flock, which the Lord has given you as I have commanded you. And you may eat within your towns as much as you desire, just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten. So you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. Only be sure that you do not eat the blood for the blood is the life and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. You shall not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. You shall not eat it. You shall pour it out upon the earth like water. You shall not eat it,

that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. But the holy things which are due from you and your votive offerings you shall take, and you shall go to the place which the Lord will choose, and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. Be careful to heed all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. Warning against idolatry.

When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take heed that you not be ensnared to follow them after they have been destroyed before you and that you do be ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods, that I may also do likewise? You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

For they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take away from it. Psalm 95, a call to worship and obedience. O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise,

for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, for his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice. Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day of Massa in

the wilderness, when your fathers tested me and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I was wearied of that generation and said, They are a people who err in heart, and they do not regard my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger that they should not enter my rest. Father in heaven, we thank you and give you praise. We thank you so much for hearing our prayers. We thank you for when we are unfaithful, you remain faithful. And that is what we need. That's you are who we need because, Lord, the depth to which our fears can control us,

the depth to which our lack of faith can control us is paralyzing at times. And yet, Lord, when we know who you are, there is no room for fear. When we love you, there is no room for fear because that perfect love casts out whatever fear we might experience. Lord, if our day today is marked with fear, we ask that you please place your love in our hearts. If our day today is marked with uncertainty and with insecurity, we ask that you place your courage and your strength in our hearts.

Lord God, above all, we ask that you place us in the palm of your hand and help us to never run away. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, as another reminder, I know I've said this many, many times, but when we were reading from Numbers, especially Numbers chapter 14, we are reading about the time right after the people of Israel were set free from slavery in Egypt. When we were reading Deuteronomy, now this is the recap. This is after 38 more years. They're about to launch into the promised land to take the land. And so just keep that in mind as we continue to move forward. This Deuteronomy is Moses' last speech. It's his last preaching, teaching to the people

of God. And Numbers is telling us the story. And the story that we heard today was after the 12 spies had gone up into the land of Canaan and 10 of them were so intimidated. They were so shocked. They were so consumed by fear that they came back and said, we could not possibly take the land. Now their job was to go up into the promised land and scout it out in that sense of being able to say, okay, are they strong? Are they weak? What kind of the cities are there? Like to create a plan, not to say, can we do this or not? It was to say, where do we go first? It was what kind of talents do we attack? What are the people like? What do we need to prepare ourselves for? But instead of saying that this scouting report comes back to prepare them to

attack, it drew them to a place of fear where they said, we couldn't possibly do this. And in today's chapter, Numbers 14, we hear the people's response. The people said that, why didn't we just die in Egypt? In fact, they try to elect captains to bring them back to Egypt. I mean, think about the heart of the slave that's still beat in the chests of the people of Israel, saying, let's just go back to Egypt, that place of slavery, and live our days there, and take whatever punishment we get for running away there. Let's just leave God and leave this land that he wants to give us. Because why?

Because it's going to be hard. And it's going to be dangerous. And they might even beat us. Because that's what's going to happen, right? Fast forward to Deuteronomy. What we're going to hear is Moses' speech, as I mentioned. And then they're going to have to go into the land. The next book after this is Joshua.

And that book of Joshua is going to tell the story of like, hey, now you need to fight. You need to actually do something. It's not just about being given. Although the promised land was being given to the people of Israel, but they had to cooperate with the Lord's work. Today, since they were unwilling to cooperate because they were driven by fear and paralyzed by distrust, this distrust that marked their lives and marked their hearts. Because of that, the Lord God says that they will not enter the promised land. In fact, the children that you said were going to be destroyed, they are not. Your children are the ones who are going to go into the promised land.

They're the ones who are going to go up and they're the ones who are going to have to fight because you were unwilling to fight. You not only do not get to see the promised land, but also your children that you're very concerned about, they're the ones that are going to have to fight because you were unwilling to fight. And isn't there this lesson for us to hear in that those of us who are adults, those of us who are in a place of responsibility, those of us who have been given people and be given a task, that if we're not willing to do the battle, if we're not willing to do that fighting of getting free from whatever burden has ensnared us, whatever slavery has been in our lives,

if we're not willing to use the grace that God has given us to move forward in freedom and to fight against that slavery, to fight against the in freedom and to fight against that slavery, to fight against the addictions, to fight against the bad behaviors of previous generations. If we're not willing to do that battle, then who's going to have to battle? Well, we might still live in slavery, but our children are the ones who are going to have to do the battle that we were unwilling to fight. And so today, this reminder for every one of us to take up arms against whatever enslaves us so that our children and our children's children don't have to take up arms against what enslaves us. This is so important for every single one of us because if we've been given a position of authority or responsibility, then it's our responsibility

in virtue of our authority to fight so that our children don't have to fight the battles that we were supposed to fight. They will have to fight battles on their own, but let them fight the battles that they are meant to fight, not our battles that we were unwilling to fight. One last note, when it comes to Deuteronomy chapter 12, the Lord God, through Moses, commands that the pagan shrines be destroyed, which makes complete sense. But he also says that prepare yourselves

for the fact that there's gonna be one place where I'm asking you to worship. There's gonna be one location that you have to go to when we offer these high and holy sacrifices. And that's going to be a very important thing because it's not kind of this willy-nilly worship wherever you want, do whatever kind of worship you want. There is going to be a place that is pointed out by the Lord.

And that's where the tabernacle is going to be. That's where ultimately the temple is going to be. And this is going to be very important, not only for the people of Israel, but for us as well, that there are restrictions when it comes to worship, not just in how we do it, but also in where we do it. We can pray anywhere and the people of Israel can pray anywhere. The Levites are going to live in their towns and their villages, but there is a place where the Levites, particularly the sons of Aaron, will exercise their priestly worship faculties, and that's going to be in the place where the Lord God points out. Now, if you want to eat any other meat, God says, you can eat it wherever. Just keep in mind it's

got to be a certain kind of meat. Why? Because in the ancient world, almost all kinds of animals were sacrificed to all kinds of gods. And so God is making it clear, okay, when it comes to certain kinds of animals, you can eat however much you want of them. But when it comes to other kinds of animals, particularly the animals that are offered in the temple, offered in the tabernacle, be careful because if you are close to the tabernacle, if you're close to the temple, you may not just eat whatever kind of meat you would like to. It all is connected to worship. And this is the thing to keep in mind for all of us.

This whole teaching in Deuteronomy chapter 12 is not strictly speaking about eating. It is more connected to worship than to anything. And hopefully that makes some sense today. As we continue to pray, we continue to pray for each other and ask the Lord to shape our minds, shape our hearts, and to shape our worldviews

so that we can see the world, him and ourselves and each other, the way that God wants us to. Especially as we're drawn closer and closer into battle for freedom and closer and closer into worship in spirit and in truth with the true and living God.

We pray for each other. We pray with each other. And we keep on this journey through our own wilderness and into the promised land that the Lord has prepared for us. I'm praying for you. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.