I have a series of six scripture readings
this evening, and I want you to join
me in each of these six readings.
The first is found in the book of
Deuteronomy, at chapter 32.
Some of you are immediately aware that the
major portion of the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy
is devoted to that incredibly magnificent song that
Moses composed, which we simply refer to as
the Song of Moses.
This is Deuteronomy 32.
It commences with verse 1, and it runs
on through verse 43.
I shall not go into it this evening,
but I'm simply asking you to realize this
constitutes the bulk of the 32nd chapter of
Deuteronomy.
Our reading picks up at verse 44.
Then Moses came, and he spoke all the
words of this song in the hearing of
the people, he with Joshua, the son of
Nun.
When Moses had finished speaking all these words
to all Israel, he said to them, Take
to your hearts all the words with which
I am warning you today, which you shall
command your sons to observe carefully even all
the words of this law, for it is
not an idle word for you.
Indeed, it is your life, and
by this word you shall prolong your days
in the land where you are about to
cross over the Jordan to Post-Esseth.
And the Lord spoke to Moses that very
same day, saying, Go up to this mountain
of the Eberim, Mount Nebo, which is in
the land of Moses opposite Jericho, and look
at the land of Canaan, which I am
giving to the sons of Israel for a
possession.
Then die on the mountain where you ascend,
and be gathered to your people as Aaron
your brother died on Mount Hor and was
gathered to his people, because you broke faith
with me in the midst of the sons
of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh
in the wilderness of Zin, because you did
not treat me as holy in the midst
of the sons of Israel.
For you shall see the land at a
distance, but you shall not go there into
the land which I am giving the sons
of Israel.
The second passage is in the book of
Numbers at chapter 20, commencing
at verse 1.
Numbers chapter 20, verse 1.
Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation
came to the wilderness of Zin in the
first month, and the people stayed at Kadesh.
Now, Miriam died there and was buried there,
and there was no water for the congregation,
and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.
The people thus contended with Moses and spoke,
saying, if only we had perished when our
brothers perished before the Lord.
Why then have you brought the Lord's assembly
into this wilderness for us and our beast
to die here?
And why have you made us come up
from Egypt to bring us into this wretched
place?
It is not a place of grain, or
of figs, or of vines, or pomegranates, nor
is there any water to drink.
Then Moses and Aaron came in from the
presence of the assembly to the doorway of
the tent of meeting, and fell on their
faces.
Then the glory of the Lord appeared to
them, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
take the rod, and you and your brother
Aaron assemble the congregation, and speak to the
rock before their eyes that it may yield
its water.
You shall thus bring forth water for them
out of the rock, and let the congregation
and their beast drink.
So Moses took the rod from before the
Lord, just as he had commanded him, and
Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the
rock, and he said to them, listen now,
you rebels, shall we bring forth water for
you out of this rock?
And Moses lifted up his hand, and he
struck the rock twice with his rod, and
water came forth abundantly, and he and the
congregation and their beast drank.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
because you have not believed me, who treat
me as holy in the sight of the
sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring
this assembly into the land which I have
given them.
Those were the waters of Meribah, because the
sons of Israel contended with the Lord, and
he proved himself holy among them.
The third reading is from the same chapter,
starting at verse 22.
So numbers 20, 22.
Now when they set out from Kadesh, the
sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to
Mount Hor, and the Lord spoke to Moses
and Aaron at Mount Hor by the border
of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall
be gathered to his people, for he shall
not enter the land which I have given
to the sons of Israel, because you rebelled
against my command at the waters of Meribah.
The fourth reading is in Numbers chapter 27.
Just three verses.
Numbers 27, verse 12.
Then the Lord said to Moses, walk to
this mountain of Abaram, and see the land
which I have given to the sons of
Israel, and when you have seen it, you
too shall be gathered to your people, as
Aaron your brother was.
For in the wilderness of Zin, during the
strife of the congregation, you rebelled against my
command to treat me as holy before their
eyes at the water.
And lest there be any confusion, these are
the waters of Meribah at Kadesh in the
wilderness of Zin.
The fifth reading requires us to return to
the book of Deuteronomy, where we pick up
a single verse in chapter 1, 37.
Deuteronomy 1, 37.
Now the Lord was angry with me also
on your account, saying, not even you shall
enter there.
And finally, number six, at Deuteronomy 3, commencing
at verse 23.
Deuteronomy 3, verse 23.
I also pleaded with the Lord at that
time, saying, O Lord God, thou hast begun
to show thy servant thy greatness and thy
strong hand for what God is there in
heaven or on earth who can do such
works and mighty acts as thy.
Let me, I pray thee, cross over and
see the fair land that is beyond the
Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon.
But the Lord was angry with me on
your account, and he would not listen to
me.
And the Lord said to me, Enough!
Speak to me no more on this matter.
Go up to the top of Pisgah.
Lift up your eyes to the west and
the north and the south and the east
and see it with your own eyes, for
you shall not cross over this Jordan, charged
Joshua, and encourage him and strengthen him.
For he shall go across as the head
of this people, and he shall give them
as an inheritance the land which you will
see.
So we remained in the valley opposite Beth
Peor.
Some of you have learned, and others need
to learn, that incredibly important distinction between sin
as a passport to hell and sin as
a thief of God's glory.
One of the major tragedies of the American
evangelical movement is that we refuse to give
any kind of realistic consideration to thieving, stealing
God's glory.
And we concern ourselves almost totally with sin
as a passport to hell.
I have made it clear, I have preached
this material before, and I have learned that
congregations like this seem to have only one
concern.
Someone is almost certain to rush up afterwards,
and are you saying, Moses went to hell?
There's something awfully wrong with your heart when
you can read passages like this and worry
about the issue of hell.
There's something vastly more consequential than going to
hell, that is robbing God of his glory.
God didn't create you to save you from
hell.
He created you to maintain his glory before
the people.
Some of you, despite your personal background, are
aware that the Presbyterians developed at the time
of the great Puritan revival an incredibly important
statement of faith, which is described as the
Westminster Standards.
The larger and the shorter catechism, which were
used, as I implied already, by Baptists and
Congregationalists and Presbyterians, the Reformed had their own
Heidelberg catechism.
But as a boy in a Presbyterian church,
I was required to memorize the shorter catechism.
And the question in the catechism was asked,
what is man's chief end?
And the answer that we memorize, and that
has come back to me thousands of times
since, is man's chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him forever.
God created you to glorify himself.
And he sent Christ to die in your
place and to take all your awful wickedness
upon his own shoulder so that you might
glorify him.
And he called Moses, and he strengthened and
used Moses for a very long time.
And Moses was careful to maintain God's glory
before the people, to uphold God's holiness.
But at the age of 120, he had
the colossal failure of his life.
Now the Lord has been teaching me personally
a very important lesson.
I remember when my dad, who had been
an ungodly fellow, and then suddenly, by the
amazing grace of Jesus Christ, was radically converted.
And his whole life changed.
And he launched into a ministry.
He was just a factory worker in the
huge General Electric company plant in Schenectady, New
York.
But his conversion was, as I said, radical.
And my dad got a burden for the
people in the county poorhouse.
And he commenced holding services on Friday evenings.
For years and years and years, he conducted
these services in the poorhouse.
He had four stations that he went to
every Friday night and proclaimed Jesus Christ.
And very soon after my conversion, as a
boy of 12, dad said to me, Now
tonight, you're to preach.
And he named the sunroom where I was
to preach.
So he took three, I took one.
And from that time, I have been graciously
permitted to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ
well over 60 years by God's grace.
But that first time I spoke in the
sunroom in the Schenectady County poorhouse, my world,
my personal world, expanded.
It had been very small up until then.
But it had enlarged just a bit at
that time.
Then somebody asked me why I didn't preach
on the street corner.
And I couldn't think of any reason why
I shouldn't.
And I did.
And my world expanded again.
And then someone proposed that I go to
the county jail and proclaim Christ.
And it expanded further.
And month after month, year after year, even
up until this evening, my world has enlarged
every single time I have spoken the word
of God.
You see, initially I had but a tiny
handful of those for whom I was personally
responsible to maintain the glory of God.
But every time I spoke the word of
God to another group, my responsibility enlarged.
It enlarges to that point where you become
critically concerned.
What if after all these gracious years, I
should suddenly do what Moses did?
I want to ask you plainly, do you
see how your world of responsibility is expanding?
This afternoon we were delighted to hear the
testimony of a string of couples who told
us about their enlarged world that came about
through the privilege of ministry in South Africa.
Now they're responsible not only for souls in
these United States that their lives have touched,
but for all those in South Africa, and
for many of them, numerous other parts of
the world as well.
Do you not sense immediately that the need
of our maintaining the glory of God before
the people is an ever-increasing need?
And the opportunity of failure, the opportunity of
robbing God of His glory is growing at
the same ratio is as our responsibility.
I'm asking you to face very seriously the
problem that Moses and Aaron encountered and the
colossal failure of their lives.
When they robbed God of His glory.
We're dealing with the judgments of God.
I tried to explain when I spoke to
you earlier, that we really are speaking in
a slightly broader sense than merely remedial judgments.
We are speaking of the righteous judgments of
God, which do include both remedial and final.
And they also include judgments like the judgment
that is rendered against Moses and Aaron in
the six passages that we have read together.
Now let's be sure that we're facing precisely
the accusations that the Lord God is making
against Moses and his brother.
Let's go back over the critical element in
each of the passages we've read.
In the Deuteronomy 32 passage, you broke faith
with me in the midst of the sons
of Israel.
You broke faith with me.
Now what did Moses do?
Did Moses stand before the people and say,
all these years I've been believing in the
Lord God omnipotent, but finally at age 120
I've come to realize it's all a myth.
There is no God.
No, oh no.
No indeed, nothing like that at all.
He broke faith.
Now I was reminded this evening by a
sweet sister of a sermon that I preached
here at the Cedars some years ago.
And apparently, I don't remember doing such a
thing, but she said that I used the
expression be all.
Be all.
Body older.
But they gave it a different significance.
But I do recall that time in my
life when I took my Bible and marked
in the margin every single occurrence that I
could discover of that incredibly important combination of
belief and obedience.
You see, the problem with Moses was not
that he denied the Lord God, not that
he recanted his position as a servant of
the Most High.
His problem is that he failed to keep
in proper relationship belief and obedience.
And so the Lord denounces him, accuses him,
straight to the face of having broken faith.
Now look at your own heart.
Is it possible that you are believing things
you are not practicing?
Are you even teaching others things that you
yourself do not practice?
Here, we have Moses, that stalwart of God,
accused by the Lord God omnipotent of breaking
faith.
But God also says concerning him in Deuteronomy
32, you did not treat me as holy
in the midst of the sons of Israel.
Do you realize that God has taken his
great glory and entrusted both his glory and
his holiness to us to maintain before our
world?
While I am speaking figuratively at the moment,
it is as if we carry in our
own hands the glory of God and before
the people we are the representatives of his
holiness.
Now, we had a strong word from Henry
on that subject this afternoon.
But Moses is accused of breaking faith and
of not maintaining God's holiness before the people.
Now that's bad enough, but there's a third
accusation leveled against Moses in Numbers chapter 20,
verse 12.
You have not believed me, who treat me
as holy in the sight of the sons
of Israel.
So he not only broke faith, and he
not only failed to treat God as holy,
he did not believe the Lord.
And again, the evidence that he did not
believe is that he did not obey.
It is absurd to insist that you believe
the Lord when you will not obey him.
Now, some of you have very cleverly argued
against opponents, telling them that the devils believe,
but are clearly not regarded by God as
acceptable.
And some have even gone so far to
say, not only do the devils believe, but
they have the grace to tremble.
But they're certainly not acceptable to God.
And we can know all that and much
more, and ourselves fail to practice what we
preach to others.
But there's a fourth accusation.
You have rebelled against my command at the
waters of Meribah.
Numbers 20, verse 24.
So you broke faith, you didn't treat me
as holy, you didn't believe me, you even
went so far as to rebel against my
command.
And in Numbers 27 at verse 14, both
Moses and Aaron are accused by God Almighty
of disobedience.
You did not honor me as holy before
the people until you disobeyed my command.
Now, there's similarity in the five accusations, but
you put them all together and they constitute
a matter of very great consequence.
And the concern that I bear toward you
this evening is a concern that with all
your deep devotion and all your earnest desire
to serve the Lord, you might very well
end up as Moses ended up.
Now, I said already some would be apt
to rush up and say, are you saying
that Moses went to hell?
No, I've already made it clear I'm not
saying that.
I believe with all my heart that God
has a call upon the life of every
believer, that there isn't a single believer here
tonight, but what God has a call upon
their life and a purpose.
And what if you never complete the call,
you never finish the work that God has
given you to do, because like Moses, you
break faith, you rebel, you rob God of
his glory.
We need to face this.
In my understanding of things, there's something much
worse than going to hell for me.
You may not feel this yourself, but I
feel it deeply.
As a boy, I wrestled with God concerning
his call upon my life, not striving against
God unwilling, but simply not understanding how a
little simpleton like me with no gifts and
no skill could ever fulfill the call that
I sensed upon my life.
I was called to proclaim the matter of
revival.
I knew it as a boy.
I never had any other aspiration or desire
but to call the church to repenting, that
the church might experience again the manifest pleasance
of God.
Somehow as a boy, I thought that it
would get easier as the years progressed, that
the temptations toward failure would lessen, that the
time would come when I would just simply
be so thoroughly holy there was no possibility
of being otherwise.
I'm only 75, and it hasn't come yet,
but some of you have heard me say
my own dear mother lived to the age
of 102, and she was one of the
most gracious and sweet-spirited women I have
ever known.
But at 102, she became somewhat cantankerous and
difficult.
It didn't become easy for her at 102.
I wonder if 106 would do it, or
maybe 124.
We've got to face the fact the longer
we persevere in the will and the purpose
of God, the stronger will be the antagonism
of our enemy.
There's a whole lot more for him to
gain by your fall now than your fall
five years ago.
The larger your world becomes, the greater the
advantage of Satan if he can bring you
down.
But let's go back to the Numbers 20
passage and carefully review the facts that are
laid out for us in that incredibly important
passage describing in more than adequate detail the
fall of our brothers Moses and Aaron.
So our concern now is to analyze the
conduct of Moses and Aaron as revealed in
the 20th chapter of Numbers.
First off, be sure you see the setting
that is created for us in the last
few words of verse 1.
Now Miriam died there and was buried there.
That is a very important statement.
We must understand there was an incredible closeness
between Moses and his brother and his sister.
Oh, they had their tensions and conflicts, but
they had labored together in the service of
the Lord for a long period of time,
and now suddenly they have lost their sister.
Surely the loss of those close to us
does create an emotional atmosphere where the devil
can reap rich rewards for his wicked purposes.
But we don't find any excuse offered either
to Moses or Aaron because of the death
of their sister Miriam.
There are some of you, perhaps, who are
still justifying your bad conduct by explaining the
loss of your husband or your wife.
But that'll never wash with God.
I'm not discounting the consequence of those grievous
seasons.
A few of you will remember the year
that Maggie and I were scheduled to come
to the cedar, and on the Sunday before
the Labor Day weekend, in taking a shower,
she fell, and she broke a few ribs,
and it hurt, but it wasn't all that
serious when everything is said and done.
So I took her to the hospital to
see what help they could give, and they
gave her a medication.
And she took the medication faithfully.
She's very faithful in doing whatever she's ordered
to.
But this time, very much to her detriment,
because in a few days, she was on
the edge of death.
I had to call here on the Friday
and say I couldn't possibly come.
Maggie was in the intensive care unit.
Initially, they thought for sure she would die,
but in the grace of God, and frankly,
in response to the prayers of God's people,
she was raised up.
But some of you have been there as
well.
You know what races through your mind and
heart at critical times like that.
And you know that you're not even thinking
clearly in some respects.
And you know how vulnerable you are, and
how especially if someone were to speak an
unkind word at a time like that.
Suppose someone had called from Cedars and had
failed me because I was unwilling to leave
my wife in that dying state.
I think that I would have sinned in
my response to that.
I'm just simply trying to portray what is
so perfectly obvious.
Moses and Aaron are at the crucial juncture
of their lives.
But God does not excuse their colossal failure
because of the emotional situation they're encountering.
Is it not crystal clear in the reading
of Numbers 20 that their great sin was
a sin of anger?
Now, some of you have excused a bad
temper for a great many years.
And some of you women in particular have
simply explained, well, it's that time of month.
But is there ever an excuse provided by
God for us to rob him of his
glory?
For us to fail to maintain his holiness
before the people.
But not only was this a sin of
anger, every indication as I see it is
that it was also a sin of hate.
God spoke to Moses and instructed him to
speak to the rock.
Do you think God would have been offended
if Moses had said, oh Lord, you know
how agitated I have allowed myself to become
by the mean-spirited, wicked criticism of these
people.
Lord, would you give me a few minutes
to retreat to a prayer closet and to
seek your face?
Do you think God would have clubbed him
down if he asked for the time that
it took to bring his emotions and his
anger under the control of the Spirit of
God?
I think not.
I'm aware of pastors who have served for
years in a congregation then totally lost their
ministry because of an outburst of anger.
And right now in this room, I have
no doubt, but there are parents weeping over
wayward children.
And those children are wayward because their parents
did not maintain the glory of God before
them.
So we have an outburst of anger.
We have an act of haste.
It is obvious also that there is a
great issue of exasperation and weariness in this
passage.
I guess most of you know this already,
but I'm hardly the most popular fellow in
the world.
And I think I know at least a
little something about having people who are angry
with me and misinterpreting what I say and
spreading rumors that are quite inaccurate.
It's easy, oh so easy, to get exasperated.
But I'm not half as tempted to get
exasperated with you as I am with Maggie.
The one person in all the world that
I love most, I can let myself go
and give her a good verbal assault if
I'm not careful.
And it's a severe problem to be exasperated
with my wife as it is with the
congregation.
All of us run this incredible danger of
robbing our Lord of His glory by allowing
the mean-spiritedness, the evil intent even, that
so often accompanies opposition to the work of
God in the church.
Or just the stupidity of people saying with
great honesty, we never did it this way
before.
There are incredible numbers of ways that people
can drive us to a spirit of exasperation.
But whenever we allow ourselves to move even
slightly in that direction, we set ourselves up
to be thieves of the glory of God.
But notice as well that this was clearly
a sin that demonstrated a lack of self
-control.
I tried to put significance into the reading
of verse 10 when we first read the
passage.
Can't you hear the loathing in Moses' voice
and heart when he cries out, Listen now,
you rebels!
And they were rebels, there's no denying.
They're rebellious hearts.
No need to cover up the conduct of
this evil people.
But our concern is not the conduct of
the evil people around us.
Our concern is the glory of God entrusted
to our care.
When was the last time you lost control
and brought grievous dishonor to the Lord?
Now this was also a sin that involved
a misuse of divinely given authority.
Moses had a rod.
The rod was given him by God.
He had instructions concerning the rod.
On a former occasion, when a similar problem
arose of a lack of water, Moses was
commanded to strike the rock with the rod.
And he did.
But this time, the command was to speak
to the rock.
And instead, he struck it.
Now we have to understand that the water
flowed despite his disobedience.
And it was plentiful.
And all the people and their beasts and
Moses and Aaron had sufficiency of water.
But he abused his authority.
For those of us who are itinerant, one
of the regular issues that we encounter that
break our heart is that of pastors who
abuse their authority.
That of deacons who abuse their authority.
That of Sunday school teachers who abuse their
authority.
I hope I've made it clear.
The water still flows.
But the authority entrusted to Moses was abused
by Moses himself.
Is there any way in which you're abusing
the authority that a gracious God has committed
to you?
But I would mention as well that this
particular sin is what we describe technically or
theologically as an aggravated sin.
Now I know that's not the term that
most Christians use or perhaps even understand its
meaning.
But there are sins that are aggravated sins.
At one time, Maggie and I lived in
the country and we had a bit of
a hill going up to our home.
And during the winter time, it becomes often
extremely difficult because the hill would ice over.
Well, on one of these awful winters, despite
the fact that I had a cut in
my hand, I took the bucket of salt
and I went out to salt the driveway.
And the salt aggravated the cut.
You can get the feel of that, can't
you?
But now, our concern tonight is not a
cut aggravated by salt, but a sin aggravated
by special circumstances.
A sin that is made worse by the
circumstances in which the sin occurs.
Come back to the text in Numbers chapter
20, verse 6.
Then Moses and Aaron came in from the
presence of the assembly to the doorway of
the tent of meeting and fell on their
faces.
Then the glory of the Lord appeared.
Some of us have been praying for decades
that the glory of the Lord would appear.
That the fire would fall, to use the
expression John gave us early this morning.
And here, Moses and Aaron had an experience
with God that every earnest Christian craves.
With all his heart to experience.
For God to draw near, to manifest His
glory.
And this is an aggravated sin because just
at the time God revealed Himself to them
to such an extent that they fell on
their faces before Him.
God issues a simple order to Moses and
he disobeyed.
Now some of you know a whole lot
more about aggravated sins than you have any
right to know.
Some of you have found in your own
experience that when you've had a mountaintop spiritual
experience, the devil is right at hand.
Maggie and I had one of those incredible
times in the state of Colorado where God
came in a most wonderful way.
We just had an incredible experience with God
and with the people of God.
And when we reached home after that glorious
occasion, somehow as we were unlocking the door
of our home and entering, I said something
wicked or she said something wicked.
I don't know which of us started it.
But we were at one another in a
moment of time.
But suddenly we were arrested and we said,
isn't that just like Satan?
There we have been with God in a
mountaintop experience.
And suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, not that
that really mattered, but there we were cutting
up each other.
For some of you, this weekend at the
Cedars will be a genuine mountaintop experience.
Be careful that you don't commit an aggravated
sin.
A sin made to work by the circumstances
in which the sin occurred.
But let me mention just a wee bit
more that is so crystal clear in this
passage.
Not only a sin of anger and haste
and exasperation, a sin that demonstrates a lack
of self-control and a misuse of divine
authority an aggravated sin, but it's a sin
that is in direct contradiction to an expressly
spoken command.
Sometimes we sin in ignorance.
Sometimes we're not crystal clear what it is
we ought to do.
But there wasn't any question about what Moses
should have done.
And yet, in the light of the simple
and yet straightforward command, he took that rod
and walloped the rock.
And it appears to me as I go
over the passage that despite the fact that
Moses is described as a meek man, there
is a very clear element of pride here.
It's as if Moses is saying, I don't
deserve this kind of people, this kind of
reproach and condemnation from you reprobate.
And some of us are often tempted to
rise up and insist that we deserve better
than we're getting from the people around us.
But I want to ask my dear brother
Don to stand.
I want to stand next to him.
I want you to see us.
And I want you to face the fact
there are an awful lot of years of
service and ministry represented in these two old
men.
Moses, 120.
Aaron, well, I don't know.
But I know between them they represented more
years than Don and I represent.
But I want you to understand age is
no preservative against evil.
This dear brother is as capable of a
fall as I am.
And the two of us together have incredible
capacity to rob God of His glory.
And every person here, young and old, has
that capacity.
See to it.
See to it that it doesn't happen.
We've got to face the seriousness of robbing
God of His glory.
We've got to come to grips with the
fact that being saved from hell is of
minor consequence in comparison with the purpose for
which we were created and redeemed.
And our hearts have got to be constantly
in the profound grip of earnestly maintaining the
holiness of God before His people.
Moses sinned by allowing the grievous conduct and
the bad mouthing of God's people to affect
his own attitude and his own actions.
And some of you are very gifted in
justifying your failure in blaming it on somebody
else who's not behaving properly.
But each of us is going to answer
for our own failure.
By human standards, the sin of Moses and
Aaron was of small consequence.
But by divine standards, it's a matter of
incredible consequence.
Reread with me verses 12 and 13 of
Numbers 20.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
Because you have not believed Me to treat
Me as holy in the sight of the
sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring
this assembly into the land which I have
given them.
These were the waters of Meribah, because the
sons of Israel contended with the Lord, and
He proved Himself holy among them.
How?
How did God prove Himself holy among the
people?
By ordering both Aaron and Moses to die
on the wrong side of the land of
promise.
What if you were to serve the Lord
faithfully for 60 years, and then allow a
colossal sin, like robbing God of His glory,
to keep you from ever finishing your life's
work?
Moses was not merely called to lead the
people out of Egypt.
He was called to lead them into the
land of promise.
And because he did not maintain God's holiness
before the people, God was forced to maintain
it at Moses' expense.
I want to make five applications of these
truths, and then we'll be finished.
Application 1.
A people that assemble against their leader may
provoke even the most aged and godly.