Moses Denied Into Canaan (MP 52)

They camped at Kadesh, and the wells were dry;
Against Moses the people did complain;
They said, “Moses brought us down here to die;
We should’ve died when the assembly was slain*!”
Moses prayed, and God replied, “Strike the stone
With your staff after the people gathered.”
Moses obeyed, like he did it alone,
As if the Lord’s power had not mattered!
“Listen, you rebels, must I strike this rock
For water?”, when the Lord made it be;
So God gave Moses an unpleasant shock,
Saying, “Because you did not honor me,
Into Canaan you surely will not go,
For I’m holy; you failed to treat me so!”
*the assembly slain: Numbers 16:49

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SPECIAL NOTICE: Beginning MARCH 9, I will start a new series in God’s Master Plan for the world---PROHECIES OF THE COMING MESSIAH! With Israel settled in Canaan, God revealed 340 forecasts of the future life of JESUS OF NAZARETH, every one of which was fulfilled! You will not want to miss any of these amazing prophecies and proofs of their fulillment! WILLIAM J.B. CRITTENDEN
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Scripture Quoted: Numbers 20:8-12 (NIV)
“So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?’ Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’ “

Commentary on: Numbers 15:1-20:13 (NIV)
God led the Israelites away from Canaan back into the desert to begin their forty-year exile for refusing to trust Him enough to invade the Promised Land. Their morale was low, and some blamed Moses for their misfortunes; a Levite leader named Korah gathered a group of 250 influential men together and openly defied Moses. They thought he had overreached his authority, saying that God was with all the people and challenged his leadership. The Lord punished them severely, opened the ground and swallowed Korah and two of his closest conspirators, with their families and all their possessions. As a result, a large assembly of all the people gathered near the tabernacle and complained to Moses; God sent a plague among them, and they began dying. Moses had Aaron go into their midst with a censer of incense, and succeeded in stopping the plague after it had killed 14,700 people. After the plague stopped, God told Moses to have each of the 12 tribes to present a staff with their tribal leader’s name on it before the Lord in the tabernacle. Aaron’s staff would represent the Levites with the name of Moses on it. The staffs were erected before the altar. The next morning they found that Aaron’s staff had grown leaves and budded, producing almonds, proving that Aaron was God’s choice for chief priest and Moses was His choice to lead Israel.

After these tragic events, they stopped at a place named Kadesh and found no water to drink. Grumbling against Moses grew up again, and Moses prayed to God for help. God told him to gather all the people at the front of the Tent of Meeting (the tabernacle). There was a rock there, and God told Moses to strike the rock in front of the people, and water would be furnished. By this point poor Moses was angry with the repeated demands of the people, and possibly “puffed up” because God had so glorified him to them as their leader, that he wanted to “show off” his supreme power. He struck the rock and produced water, but his speech to them left God’s power completely out (see scripture quoted above). He spoke as if the miracle was coming from him and Aaron, when it was God’s power. This is a major principle to all who witness for God, even until today: In all things He must be given credit for every blessing received; God gets angry when He is the source of life itself, all our possessions, our healings from illness, and every good thing we have, and He wants to be acknowledged as the source. As a result of Moses’ gaffe, God decreed that Moses would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land when it was finally possessed by Israel.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)