Knock, Knock (no joking...)
/We finally caught up with the 21st century in my house by installing an audio-enabled doorbell camera. Now I can stay seated in my chair to see if I want to ignore the doorbell pusher instead of having to sneak up to the door’s peephole. Despite its capabilities, though, the new doorbell is mostly a way for me to satisfy my curiosity and it’s on pace to do that at least six times a year!
“Curiosity” was my thought this morning while reading Deuteronomy 1, which also reminded me that “curiosity killed the cat.” Let me explain… In this chapter, Moses is talking to the people of Israel as they are about to enter their promised land of Canaan after a 40-year journey through the wilderness. It’s the land God promised in a covenant with Abraham several hundred years earlier and Moses wanted to encourage them to be enter the land with appreciation and in obedience to God.
It was more than just a pep-talk, though. He also recounted their 40 years of wandering to set up the significance of what they were about to do, and it was not a rosy history. In fact, Moses reminded them (verses 19-46) that their wandering had been a punishment for not trusting God when they sent spies to scout the opposition when they were on the verge of entering earlier. Yep, 40 years earlier. (Doh!)
So, to summarize Moses’ summary:
God promised the land to them.
He had proven that He could be trusted.
“The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes.” (1:30)
He loved them.
“In the wilderness… you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son.” (1: 31).
Still, they wouldn’t believe unless they saw with their own eyes that God could be trusted. When they asked Moses to send the spies, Moses asked God. God could have said no, of course, but having already explained the consequences of doubting Him, He allowed them to act as free-will beings.
Just because God allows something doesn’t mean He blesses it, though. He does not authorize our sins, yet we sin. And this we have in common with those travelers—we also suffer the consequences of our freely made choices. For them, that meant not being able to enter their promised land when it was right there, just across the river. Nope, for that they would have to wait another 40 years. But why “40?” See God’s sentencing:
“According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.” (Num. 14:34)
Here’s the twist, though. If it looks like they were penalized for disobedience or for breaking one of His laws, they weren’t. They’d broken laws before without being punished (see the making of the golden calf, Exodus 32:1-6, et al). No, this penalty was justified by their unbelief. They did not trust what God had told them and needed to see for themselves. When He told them to go through the door, they needed to go look through the peephole first. Or as Matthew Henry said it, “They needed to light a candle to the sun.”
The sentence God gave them was much more than the 40 years of waiting, though. In fact, He sentenced everyone 20 years old and above (who sent the spies and all who rebelled after the spies’ bad report) to immediate death. Only Moses’ pleading stayed the execution when God amended His order to bar that group from ever entering Canaan. (Surely Moses’ appeal was from compassion, but maybe a little because he dreaded being the only counselor in what would have then become the world’s largest summer youth camp… for 40 years… in the dessert? Just sayin…")
So, here is Moses giving a recap to a group of people who were younger than 20 at the time of that rebellion, or had not yet been born, plus two other men. Joshua and Caleb had not believed the spies report but instead urged the people to trust God and so were not only spared the punishment but also honored. Everyone else (expect for those two and Moses) had by now died in the natural course of life.
God’s people had been on the doorstep of their promised land 40 years earlier and were days from entering, but on the threshold of His kingdom is not in His kingdom. And though being one of “His people” got them there, their unbelief kept them out and it will keep us out too, no matter how close we (think we) are.
Matthew Henry said that “Distrust of His power and goodness flows from a disbelief of His Word.” Distrust and disbelief are rebellions that fool us into thinking the cost of trusting Him is too great and are certain to keep us from crossing the threshold. But the cost of not trusting Him is all the greater because there will be a time when it is too late to trust. At the end, the untrusting, unbeliever will be like the one who knocks on the door to whom Jesus will say,
“Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” (Matt. 25:12)
I only hope that when I ring the doorbell, Jesus pushes the talk button and says, “Hold on, Don, I’ll be right there.”