Read: Numbers 14:1-15:16; Mark 14:53-72; Psalm 53:1-6; Proverbs 11:4
It is a sad day in Israeldom. The people received the bad report of the ten spies and rejected the good report of Caleb and Joshua. Because they rebelled and chose not to have faith in God, God sentenced them to death and their children to 40 more years of wandering in the wilderness. Those that had any remembrance of Egypt would be dead and the new generation would enter God’s promised land. God said that only Joshua and Caleb would enter the land - he didn’t mention Moses because He knew. God called them an evil generation because they could not see the promise standing before them. Jesus called the generation he came in an evil generation also (Luke 11:29). They couldn’t see the Messiah standing before them.
Some of the people decided to go in anyway without Moses’ blessing and without the ark of the covenant of the Lord and were killed by the Amalekites.
God did leave them with hope. He told them that when they did enter the land they could offer Him the same offerings as before.
…On to Mark. The Jews have to have two or three witnesses in order to kill a person (Deuteronomy 17:6). The leaders of the law couldn’t even get two false witnesses to agree so they asked Jesus if he was the Christ. Jesus answered, “I am.” At his own confession he was sentenced to death. “I am” is sacred words to the Jewish scholars. “I am” was a name God gave to himself when Moses asked him his name. For Jesus to use this term was blasphemy to them. He added, “and you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” It was then that the high priest said, “need we any further witnesses?” So it was by his own words that Jesus was condemned. They didn’t take his life - he laid it down.
Our Psalm and Proverb for today were very timely of what was going on in both our other readings.
Lord, may we be of the righteous that deliver from death. May we be like Jesus who saw death as a means to life.
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