Happiness Here
6 min read
63 These are the ones counted by Moses and Eleazar the priest when they counted the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. 64 Not one of them was among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai. 65 For the LORD had told those Israelites they would surely die in the wilderness, and not one of them was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
Numbers 26:63-65
On the one hand, these verses are a foreshadow of Moses’s death. The man that God had used to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness was also going to die in the wilderness because he did not trust in God enough to honor Him as holy when God caused water to come out of a rock at Meribah (Numbers 20:12).
It is so tragic that Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land, and to us it may seem grossly unfair. We should keep in mind, though, that God is God and we are not. Also, Moses, more than anyone else, should have trusted God enough to honor Him as holy. In that incident at Meribah, because of his anger at the Israelites, Moses struck the rock twice instead of once, as God had commanded him, and he acted as if he were the source of the water.
Obviously, Moses is in paradise with the Lord (Luke 23:43), but he never got to see the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise of the Israelites taking possession of the promised land. That is what was so tragic, because that was the very reason for God calling Moses.
But not just Moses. The entire generation of adults who came out of Egypt. None of them got to experience the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise, except Caleb and Joshua.
Is that such a big deal? I mean, Moses, and presumably Aaron and Miriam and many other Israelites, made it into paradise, even though they all died in the wilderness.
And maybe that question (is that such a big deal?) is one of the major problems with 21st century, Western Christianity. We act as if getting into heaven is the ultimate goal of our salvation … It’s not.
If getting into heaven is the ultimate goal of our salvation, then believing that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God and that He died to pay the penalty for all the sins of all of humanity across all time and that He was resurrected to eternal life and sits at the right hand of the Father and that Jesus will return one day to usher in God’s eternal kingdom would be enough.
But if giving glory to God with our lives is the ultimate goal of our salvation, then we also need to follow Jesus as our Lord in faith and obedience. Jesus doesn’t just want our confession. He wants our lives.
But in giving our lives to Jesus as our Lord, we get to experience the goodness and joy and blessing of God’s covenant promise being fulfilled on this side of eternity. Deferring our God-glorifying happiness by giving our lives to this world instead of to Christ is effectively not trusting God enough to honor Him as holy.
I don’t want to defer my God-glorifying happiness.
Father, You are so gracious and merciful to me. I confess that my spirit is willing to trust and honor You completely, but my flesh is so weak. Change my heart so that I might experience the happiness of obedience in this lifetime. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
