A Lesson From Moses

Thank you, Mr. Byer. I appreciate all of you singing out on that song because I surely didn't know it. I thought Mr. Byer was going to give us a singing lesson on that. I'm glad that Mrs. Ammel knew all that song. Maybe you had to practice that one, or did you? Okay. If she had to practice it, then we know it was pretty new. I guess there are at least several songs there that we are not yet very familiar with, but we will learn a few as we go along. Well, I'm very thankful to see all of you today, and I am glad to be able to run up to Fulton this morning. As the first day since I injured my shoulder, I've tried to go to both places if I've gone to one or the other. That's been a little bit easier, but I'm thankful that I feel well enough to be able to get back here and be here with you in services. I appreciate your prayers regarding my healing. I feel like I'm doing okay, but I'll find out this week more so about how things are going with my collarbone that needs to heal up.

I wanted to cover something today that I hope can be helpful and beneficial to all of us. I want to cover a little bit of information about a man that I know all of you are very familiar with. One that we have read about quite a bit, really, in the Old Testament. One that we look at in the Old Testament as, in many ways, a premier individual. You could say, well, who could that be? That might be a number of different people, people that you would think about that make up major roles in the Old Testament. But the individual that I want to talk about today is the man who wrote the first five books of the Bible. The man who wrote not only Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, but also, I believe, Psalm 90 is attributed to Moses. And, of course, I think all of us are familiar with this story of Moses. We're familiar with him being protected as a young child and then him later growing up in the house of Pharaoh and ultimately being used by God to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

Being used to go to Pharaoh and to take his rod and to turn it into a snake and be able to change the water in the Nile to blood, all of the different plagues, and ultimately to be leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and then into the Promised Land. See, that's where they were headed. They were headed to the Promised Land. And, of course, as all of us know, they didn't immediately get there. They took a detour. A detour that lasted for about 40 years. A detour that was because they didn't really believe. They didn't really have faith in God. They were complaining and moaning and groaning and griping about almost everything that happened. And yet Moses was the physical individual that God used during that time to bring them out of Egypt and to lead them right up to the edge. Right up to the edge of the Promised Land. And yet, look in Deuteronomy 34, the very last chapter here of the book of Deuteronomy. And if you will, as you follow the story through the first five books of the Bible, you know that, well, this is right up on the edge of the children of Israel going into the Promised Land. And in the book of Joshua, as you start reading into Joshua, then they're starting to go into the Promised Land.

But here in chapter 34, we see some remarkable things that are stated. Here in Deuteronomy 34, in verse 5, it says, Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died. The individual that God had been using for many, many decades at this point, it says here in verse 5, Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab at the Lord's command. God told Moses, you've led the children of Israel right up to the very edge of going into the land, and yet I'm going to allow you to die. And we actually read a little more.

If you drop down to verse 10, you read a little more about what Moses had done, never since there, and never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses. Moses was clearly an individual that God had dealt with in a remarkably unique way. It says, never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, and the Lord knew face to face.

That would be an unbelievable, remarkable experience for anyone to live through. Moses was about 120 at this time, right when he was about to die. It says he was about 120 years old. And during much of that lifetime, he had had an interesting interaction with God. Because the Lord of the Old Testament, the one who would later become Jesus Christ, he had interacted with Moses.

He had clearly given him the Ten Commandments, which is a premier thing, that we read about that God had given to Moses the Commandments on the tablets, and then he later wrote them again with the finger of God on another set of tablets after Moses had broken them. And yet, what we see is that that relationship was just remarkable. Because at times, Moses would, in a sense, almost appeal to God. He would ask him to do this, or do that, or to not do something in regard to the Israelites. And that kind of relationship is just a remarkable thing, and it talks about that in verse 10 and 11.

Moses was unequal for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh and all his servants in the entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses had performed in the sight of all of Israel. Now, this is truly a remarkable servant, a remarkable servant of God that God had used in a remarkable way.

And yet, when we look back in verse 4, we see Moses is asked by God, the Lord says, This is the land on which I swore to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. And I said to him, I'm going to give it to your descendants. I will let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there. You hear God, after having worked with Moses and with him leading Israel for many decades, He said, I'm going to let you look into the land. I want you to go up and I want you to be able to see what it looks like. I want you to see how beautiful it is.

I want you to see how abundant it is. But you're not going to go into it. Moses had come to a point in his life, and of course, if he was paying attention to what God was telling him, he knew, I'm not going to live very much longer. I'm going to die. I'm going to die here, in this valley or in the mountain and the valleys that were around Mount Nebo. He says, I'm going to die and I'm not going to go into the Promised Land. I think it's interesting to think about what had Moses done.

What had Moses done that had restricted him from going into the Promised Land? Because there is very clearly a direct chapter and several verses, actually, that talk about what it was that Moses did, that God, in a sense, God restricted him from going into the Promised Land. Now, clearly, Moses is going to be in the real Promised Land.

He's going to be in the Kingdom of God. He is listed as one of the paragons of faith as we look at Hebrews 11. He talks about the faith that he had in doing the work that he was assigned to do. And it says, he has yet to fully receive the promises that are predicted for all of those who have been the servants of God. But see, what was it? What flaw? What difficulty did Moses run into that prevented him from going into the Promised Land?

I want to be able to discuss this. Actually, if we look back in Deuteronomy chapter 3, in Deuteronomy 3, you see a little bit about Moses and God's interaction. Because there are numerous times when it says Moses was conversing with God. He was talking to God. He was pleading with God. He was begging God even to change his mind at times. That was what Moses' role was. It was so significant. Even though he was to be, in a sense, kind of an in-between between the people and God. We don't want to hear the voice of God. God is too loud. God is too powerful. He's too great. We need something between you and me, or between God and us, I guess it would be. And Moses was the individual that ended up falling into that category. But here in Deuteronomy 3, it says in verse 23, At that time, too, I entreated the Lord, saying, O Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your might. What God is heaven or on earth can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours. It's clear that Moses had a great respect for God, a great rapport with God.

And in this case, he was certainly, in a sense, praising God for his great power and might. And yet in verse 25, he said, Let me cross over to see the good land beyond the Jordan, the good country, and Lebanon. See, in this account, actually, this is an account that Moses mentions here early in Deuteronomy.

And yet we follow up with it later on for the very last part of the book of Deuteronomy. But in saying, in verse 25, let me cross over and see the good land, to see the land of Jordan, to see what's been predicted, to see what is going to be the inheritance of these children of Israel. In verse 26, it says, The Lord was angry with me on your account and would not heed me. See, it's almost like this was something that Moses had brought up maybe more than once.

This is an interaction that we see that Moses knew that he had done something. He knew what God had said, that God would only let him look into the land and not let him go into it. And yet he brought it up occasionally. It would appear, at least he may have brought it up more than once, because what it says in verse 25, let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan. But the Lord was angry, and the Lord said to me, Enough from you!

Never speak to me of this matter again! So it almost sounds like he had asked more than once that, well, don't you think I could go on over into the land and at least enjoy some of whatever that is? And yet God said, no, I'm not going to allow that. Because there's a significant problem that I want you to remember, that I want the Israelites to remember, and that I want you and I, all of us now reading these accounts, He wants us to remember what it was that even the tremendous servant of God that Moses was, what it was that he did that God, in a sense, took great offense at.

Here in Deuteronomy 32, go back toward the end of this, and again, this is writing about the time right before Moses would then die. And right before Joshua would be lifted up and be presented as the leader that the Israelites should follow on over into the land. Here in Deuteronomy 32, it explains quite a bit more about this. It says in verse 48, Deuteronomy 32, verse 48, He says on that very day, The Lord addressed Moses as follows.

He said, To send this mountain up to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, and Moab was to the east of the land of Israel, the promised land, the land of Canaan. It was on the other side of the Jordan, so he could go up into the mountains. He could be there on Mount Nebo. He says, I want you to ascend, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jordan.

I want you to view the land, which I'm giving to the Israelites for a possession, and you shall die there on that mountain. You are going to die on that mountain that you ascend, and you shall be gathered to your kin as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his kin. So here, this was actually the time when this was going to occur. God said, I want you to go up. I want you to be up there on Mount Nebo. I want you to be able to see it, but then you're going to die.

Then he describes why. Here in verse 51 and in verse 52. He says, you're going to die. You're going to be gathered to your kin, because both of you, and here he says to both Aaron and to Moses, both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Maribah and the wilderness of Zinn. Now, that's my new Revised Standard Translation, and I would imagine in your either King James or many of you, I know, have the new King James.

It doesn't say you broke faith with me. It says you transgressed against me. Maybe that is a little better understanding. You transgressed against me. It goes on to say in verse 52, or excuse me, this is the latter part of verse 51, that you transgressed against me among the Israelites at the waters of Maribah and the wilderness of Zinn by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites.

Now, again, that's the new Revised Standard. And what the new King James says, what many of you are perhaps reading, it says, you did not hallow me. You did not hallow my name in the midst of the children of Israel. See, this was really the indictment that God was laying at Moses' feet and saying, you're guilty. At the waters of Maribah, at a time when the children of Israel were complaining, actually, there were two different times when this happened. One very early, after they got out of Egypt and were even looking into the land and before they ended up wandering in the wilderness, they were at the waters of Maribah, they were complaining. God brought water to them then. And then later on, we find the incident that we're later going to read about, a time when, again, they're actually almost through their years of wandering and trying to look into the Promised Land and almost to the time when Moses is going to die. And then Moses runs into another incident. He runs into another circumstance where water needs to be brought out of the rock, and how he handled that was rather poor. He didn't do what God had wanted. And what God describes it as is that you did not hallow my name. Brethren, how important is that? How important is that that we hallow the name of God? And of course, hallow is another word. Maybe that's kind of an older English word. It simply means to honor, or to show respect, or to lift up the name of the Creator of the universe. See, Moses failed to hallow the name of God before Israel, and hence, this prevented his entry into the Promised Land. We're all familiar with what Jesus gave as a directive in Matthew 6. Whenever the disciples asked him how it was, and actually, as I think about it, I know Mr. Brannon was mentioning a verse that I had pointed out to him. This will be a side statement. Whenever he was talking about the type of gentleness, and the type of care, and the type of nurturing, the type of service, the gentle loving service that is going to be extended to people who have suffered abuse, what we're going to find is that that is the type of gentle loving care that Jesus has for all of us. In Matthew 11, verse 28, and verse 29, what Jesus says there is, "'Come to me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and I am lowly of heart, and I will give you rest, or I will give rest to your soul.'" He says, "'My yoke is easy, my burden is light, I am able, I want you to learn about how it is that I am going to lead people.'" And of course, that's good for us to learn today, and it is something that we want to embrace. We want to grow in that type of compassion, that type of gentleness, that type of nurturing that Jesus says He has for all of us.

But I'll just, as I was reminded of that, going to Matthew here, I'll point that out. We also have other really remarkable verses that talk about Jesus caring for people as tenderly and gently carrying them as sheep in His arms. That again is another illustration of that type of gentleness.

But what we see in Matthew 6, and of course all of us are familiar with the model prayer that Jesus gave His disciples when He was asked about it. You can see that in Luke. But here in Matthew 6, He said, "'Well, pray in this way,' or use this type of an outline." He said, "'Pray our Father, which is in heaven, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name.'" See, one of the primary, one of the particular things that Jesus wanted His disciples to remember about how it is that we pray, how it is that we approach God, how it is that we address the One who created us, is that we should hallow the name of God.

And of course, if you back up a few verses here, verse 5, He says, "'Whenever you pray,'" Matthew 6, verse 5, "'Whenever you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogue and on the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.' Truly, I tell you, they've received their reward." See, this was Jesus giving instruction about how to approach God, how it was that He approached His Father. See, He wanted to hallow the name of the Father. He wanted to honor the Father who had sent Him to the earth. And so He wanted His disciples to know. And of course, there are other directives that are here that we could go into as well. But the one I want to focus on is simply that we are told not to be praying because we'll be heard for our much speaking or be seen of others. See, the focus has got to be, instead of on others, it's got to be on God. It's got to be on the type of respect, the type of honor, the type of a close, intimate relationship with our Father that He tells us to cultivate. Down in verse 7, He says, when you pray, don't heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they'll be heard because of their many words. Don't be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you even ask. See, I think this is a reminder to us. It should be a reminder to us as we come before God. And unfortunately, I think so many people today, and then in a sense, the very profane society that we live in and the way in which that can rub off on us, we don't want to overlook that when we come to God, when we come to the Father and we come to pray before God, that we truly hallow, truly honor the God that we are addressing. Now, we know Him as our Father. We know Him as our Heavenly Father. But whenever we approach Him in prayer, whenever we are bringing our petitions to Him, and we're praying for one another, and that's truly wonderful. And brethren, I know that you are doing that, and I know we as a group do that for one another. We are concerned about people when they're sick. We're concerned about people when they have need. We pray for one another. We pray for ourselves. We all need certain things ourselves. And yet we want, whenever we come before God, we want to hallow His name. To hallow not just the name God or the name Father, but hallow everything that that is. Everything that God is. His entire being, His entire identity, His entire character, His entire, in a sense, His whole reputation as our Heavenly Father. See, He has the nature that I want. See, God has what I want. God has what you want. He has a divine nature. And whenever we come before God, I think we should envision, of course, we read in Revelation of different descriptions of coming before the throne of God, and the sea of glass, and the angelic beings who are continually there bowing before God. They're giving an example. An example of what it is to hallow the name of God. In one account there in Revelation 4, it's saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, the One who was and is and is to come. See, if we can think that whenever we're praying, that God's eternal. See, all of us had a beginning point not too long ago. For some of us, it was longer than for others.

For Mr. Brennan, it was 62 years ago. I absolutely know that because he told me that the other day. And for me, it was 63 years ago. I had a beginning! God didn't. You had a beginning 30 years, 40, 50, 80, 88. We all had a beginning very short time ago. But the One who is and the One who was and the One who always will be is the One that we address whenever we come before Him in our prayers. And because we do that, we do that every day. At least we should. But we often do that even several times during the day. Maybe many times during the day. But sometimes we can lapse into our approach to praying and be almost saying things. And I know I do this myself. I say things today that I said this morning. I say things in prayer to God, even in the car as I'm driving back and forth. I say things that I said this morning. I say things that I said yesterday and the day before. And I don't know that that's necessarily wrong because I just don't have much of an imagination. But I don't ever want those to be idle words. I want those to have meaning. I want those to have impact. I want to truly honor and hallow the name of God. And I think we do that. I think we do that whenever we are mindful. We are reminding ourselves of who it is that we are approaching. And of course, what I'm going to show you today in Moses' case was that Moses did not hallow the name of God in word and in deed. And of course, that's what we want to do. We want to hallow the name of God in word, in our prayers and in other times when we might talk about God. But we want to hallow the name of God in our actions and in our deeds. Here in Isaiah 6, you've got a different account. And this is actually an account that Isaiah gives of his, I guess you could say it was his calling. His being drawn into the role of being a prophet that God was going to send to Israel. Or send, I think, more so to Judah and to the kings of Judah. Because I believe that that is more so who Isaiah was actually sent to. But here in Isaiah 6, it's very interesting to see what he records. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. And seraphs were in attendance around him, each with six wings, and two were covered with two of the wings, covered their face, with two they covered their feet, with two they flew. And one called and said to the other, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the pivots of the threshold shook at the voices of those who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And then Isaiah said, after he saw this vision, he was given a vision into the throne of God. He was given a vision of angelic beings around that throne of the respect and honor that they had for the one who was seated on the throne. And Isaiah said in verse 5, Woe is me! Woe is me! I am lost! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And so the response that Isaiah had was impressive. It made a deep impression upon him.

And then in verse 6 it says, one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, Now, this has touched your lips, and your guilt has departed, your sin has blotted out. And so in a sense, he was being offered forgiveness. He was being offered mercy from the throne of God.

And then he backs this up with verse 8, and I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Well, who am I going to send? Who is it that will go for us? And Isaiah, I guess, probably had no other answer as, Well, I'm here. I'm the one you're dealing with. I'm the one you're interacting with. Send me.

And so this is another account that we have of someone approaching God, thinking about who it was that they were seeing. And see, what actually happened to Isaiah whenever he realized, you know, I'm in the presence of the Lord of Hosts. I'm in the presence of the great Creator God.

Well, in the presence of Almighty God, Isaiah became keenly aware of his own blemishes. See, that's what he realized. He said, I have no business being here. I have no business approaching the Creator of the universe. I see my contamination. I see my blemishes. And actually, brethren, as we draw closer to God, I think we more acutely sense our own sinfulness and our own need to be cleansed. But this is what Isaiah was feeling. He was acknowledging how much, how unworthy he felt to come before the great God. The God who was going to forgive him for his unclean lips and the people that he lived among, and the God who was going to send him with a message. He was going to cause him to be a servant of God to the kings of Judah. And yet, you know, we may not have that kind of a respect. We may not have that type of an honor that we are extending to God. But I think we should cultivate that. I know it's so common today, and it's in many ways very unfortunate that the world around us uses the name of God in such an irresponsible way. Such a glaringly wrong way. We hear the name of God used in cursing. We hear it being taken in vain. We hear it being used in such casual ways. It truly defiles and degrades the name of God. I was thinking, even the other night, as we watched some of the Olympic races and then the talk that they have after, especially some of our U.S. swimmers that they talked to right after the race. I don't know how they can even talk right after the race. I'd be about to sink, is what I would be if I had done that type of race. But apparently they're in a lot better shape than most all of us. But then they can talk. But even many of them, being much younger, of course some of them down to even 15, probably 15 to 30, would be the range of the people that were being talked to in an interview. But they so commonly use the name of God. Now very few of them are using this in real praise, real honor. Several of them would say, oh my God. That's a phrase that is so common, it's almost taken for granted. It's almost like people don't even know that they're saying something that really is not using God's name in an appropriate way. Not using God's name in a way that is showing honor and is hallowing the name of God. And yet you find that so common in even texting. Now if you look at very many texts, and if you text with anybody who really is not terribly concerned about what they text, you'll see that quite often.

And yet, that is such a common misuse that we don't want to fall for that type of a gimmick. We don't want to fall for that type of a misrepresentation. And certainly we want to learn to hallow the name of God in words, in what we say and how we approach God, but also in our deeds. Let's look at what Moses did here. This is over in Numbers, chapter 20. Numbers, chapter 20. This is actually the second time that the children of Israel are at the waters of Maribah. Second time they're complaining about water or lack of it. The second time they're in essentially the same spot. They need water coming out of the rock, and they don't have any.

Now, earlier, going back 40 years, God performed a miracle and sent them the water. Water came out of the rock. Moses and Aaron and the elders of Israel were involved in that activity. And of course, the people were the ones who were complaining and griping and groaning. And yet here, toward the end of the 40 years, as they're coming toward the solution, the promised land, they're once again in the same situation. They're once again here at the waters of Maribah. It says in verse 2, Now there was no water for the congregation, and so they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron.

And the people quarreled with Moses and said, Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord? Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die together? Again, these are the same words they said earlier. They didn't seem to learn very much, and of course, as you know, over the course of 40 years, the older people had died out, and now the younger people were complaining the same way. They were all concerned.

Why have you brought us out of Egypt to bring us into this wretched place? It is no place for grain or figs or wine or pomegranates, and there's certainly no water to drink. See, what was it that Moses had been promising? Oh, we're going to the Promised Land.

There's going to be figs and pomegranates, and there's going to be all this good stuff, and there's going to be a land that flows with milk and honey. It's going to be wonderful! And they say, Where is it? It's not here. We're not to it yet. And of course, they complain. And so in verse 6, it says, Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and they fell on their faces.

And the glory of the Lord appeared to them. And so clearly, Moses and Aaron had the right idea. They had a right perception of what to do. Well, here we are. We're stuck again. The people are complaining again. They're all thirsty again. We hear this entirely new bunch. Moses clearly was the elder statesman, really elder statesman at this point. And of course, Joshua was going to be leading people into the Promised Land.

But here it says, Moses and Aaron sought God. And the Lord said in verse 7, The Lord spoke to Moses and said, I want you to take the rod. And so here he still had the rod, the rod that he had used when he was in Egypt, the rod that had turned into a snake, the rod that had caused the river Nile to turn to blood.

This was what he was told to do. Take that rod and assemble the congregation and you and your brother Aaron and command or speak to the rock before their eyes to yield its water. And thus you shall bring forth water out of the rock for them, and thus you shall provide drink for the congregation and their livestock. So who had all the answers?

God. Who needed to know what the answers were? Moses. He was bringing this to God, and God was telling him, okay, take your rod, go out, assemble everybody, speak to the rock, tell them, bring forth water, and you'll have water and plenty enough for the whole congregation. So in verse 9, Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he had commanded him, and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock.

And so they started doing what God had said. They took the rod, gathered everybody up, brought them all up by, I guess, the right rock, whichever that rock was going to be, that God was going to perform this miracle. But you see that Moses' approach begins to kind of collapse here. It begins to be somewhat questionable. Now maybe Moses was tired of walking around the desert for 40 years.

Maybe he just didn't sleep very well the night before. Maybe he just actually got out and out of the sun at the Israelites who were complaining about the same thing they'd been complaining about for the last 40 years.

But whatever the case, it's what he said to them, Listen, listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock? This was not a respectful way to do what God told him. Now this was obviously not even what God told him to do.

But you find some flaws here that Moses was suffering from because he was human. He had done marvelous things over the course of his lifetime. He had been blessed in remarkable ways. And yet here he said, Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock? And then, even to compound the situation, Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock. I bet that first strike was a real crisis.

Because on the first strike, nothing happened. At least that's what it says. He struck it twice. And then the water came out abundantly and the congregation and their livestock drank. I really bet that was a real crisis for Moses because here he is, he's upset, he's angry, he's mad at the Israelites, he's mad at what they're doing, he's mad at the attitude they have, he's mad at the way that they disrespect God and how they're so rebellious.

And he says some erroneous things and then he even does. He whacks on the rock a couple of times. And again, why would you do it the second time if the first time worked and he'd have to even think back to even say whether or not I should have been hitting the rock at all.

Because that wasn't even a part of what God told him this time. Now, it says in verse 12, After they had gotten the water, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in me, you didn't trust me. And because you did not show my holiness before the eyes of the children of Israel. To hear God is actually telling Moses what he had done wrong. What it was, that how he had misrepresented something that he should have represented in a right way. And this is, of course, the new Revised Standard Version that I'm reading here.

It says, Because you did not believe in me to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring the assembly into the land that I have given them. Here it was, as far as God describing what it was that Moses had done that was so wrong. And actually, I think in your New King James, it says, Because you did not believe in me that you did not hollow my name before Israel.

You just didn't do what you had been doing a fair amount of the time over the last decades of years. You've allowed yourself to get so worked up, so upset, so angry, so distraught at these rebellious people that you have not only misspoken, but you have misacted and you have not hallowed my name. See, what was he supposed to do? What was Moses supposed to do? God told him, Take the rock. He told him, Don't hit the rock. That wasn't a part of the plan. He says, Go and speak to the rock, and I'll provide you water. Now, he provided water in the past, and he provided water here this time.

But see, what we find about this was that Moses got so upset, he got so angry, and of course, he wasn't really thinking very clearly, and he was in a sense kind of blaming the rebels. Listen, you rebels, must we bring water for you out of the rock? Did Moses make that type of statement out of being maybe fed up with the situation and forgetting?

Well, and of course, earlier, as he was performing miracles coming out of Egypt, I'm sure he gave God the credit, because he clearly didn't have any way of opening up the Red Sea. He didn't have any way of even the first time they had been at the Waters of Maribah to get any water out of the rock. But God did that, and yet Moses and Aaron took some of the credit.

They took some of the credit for getting the water, instead of giving the water or giving the credit to God. He says, you didn't hallow my name before the children of Israel. And so by their action, they were showing that maybe they were puffed up by their opinion of who it was they were and how they had been used by God as leading the children of Israel for a long period of time. Of course, as I mentioned, it says he struck the rock, and God didn't tell him to do that.

He told him to speak to the rock. And in verse 12, it says, it displayed a lack of faith when they did not show belief in God. It says, you did not believe me to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel. You didn't acknowledge that the Lord is going to bring water out of the rock. They said, must we do it? And of course, you also might wonder, well, why did Moses do that?

Well, to a degree, you have to almost wonder, even though Moses had been used by God throughout many decades, many years at this time, perhaps he failed to remember. Even as he got older, even as he actually got closer to the end of his life, did he forget that the rules apply to me, too. The rules regarding what God wants us to do, how he wants us to obey, they're not just for the Israelites. They apply to me, and they certainly sent the wrong example as a leader before the Israelites. If we drop down to verse 24, you actually see God's statement.

And this is actually talking about Aaron. But it says in verse 22, they sit up from Kadesh, and in verse 23, The LORD said to Moses, and Aaron, on the border of the land of Eden, let Aaron be gathered to his people, for he will not enter the land that I have given you, or to the Israelites, because you rebelled.

You hear, Moses was calling the rest of them rebels, and God says, Well, you and Aaron, you rebelled against my command at the waters of Maribah. Moses said, all of you people are the problem. All of you people are the ones who are wanting water out of the rock.

Must we give you that water? And of course, what God later said was that you didn't hallow my name. You didn't say, well, the LORD will bring water out of the rock, and will provide for you, and provide for your children, and provide for your horses, and provide for your cattle and livestock. He didn't give God the type of honor and the type of praise that He should have.

So I guess there's a lot of things that we could learn from that. And of course, ultimately, Moses would then die. And clearly, Moses will be a part of the kingdom of God, as we read in Hebrews 11. He's an individual that is listed there as one of the individuals who have faith and who are yet to receive the promises that God had given them. But see, at this time, Moses, as an older individual, probably the oldest one there, the one that God had worked with the longest, we would have to say that, well, none of us are never too old to be tested. No matter who we are, it doesn't make any difference. It doesn't matter how long we've been sitting in a seat in the Church of God, we're never too old to be beyond being tested. This happened right at the very end of Moses' life, right at this very end. And of course, none of us are so perfect that we don't have lessons to learn. See, and that goes for all of us. Everyone seated here goes clearly for me and for any other, you know, other ministers in the Church of God.

None of us are so much above God's rule that we don't have lessons to learn. And no matter who we are or what role we might have, what position we might hold, we're not excused from obeying the law of God. No one is above the law. And of course, all of us can learn that in a sense from the way that Moses didn't handle this particular issue very well. But what God said about it was simply, you just didn't hallow my name. And I think that all of us, not only as we've approached God in word, we want to properly hallow His name and respect that as we pray to Him, but we want to interact with others. We want to interact with one another in a respectful way and honoring God, giving God credit, giving Him praise for what He might even do through us. So that's something that Moses apparently forgot. We don't have a lot of additional information. And of course, these particular words, I think, are primarily the only ones that tell us anything about this situation. But I bring this up simply to say that we have a wonderful opportunity to relate to the Father and to relate to His Son. And to be able to respect and hallow them in word and in deed. And so I want to encourage all of us to understand what it was that Moses ran into, even at the end of his life. Know what it was, that why it was God restricted him, but it was because of something that he either forgot or got caught up in the moment and then didn't hallow the name of God like he should have. So our words and our deeds need to hallow the name of the great God. And certainly as we approach the coming kingdom of God, we want the kingdom of God to be here. I don't know how much longer that's going to be. I hope that's not very long. But it doesn't matter how long it is, God's going to bring that kingdom to the earth. He wants us to be a part of that kingdom. But He, of course, wants us to have learned the lesson that Moses taught us and also to realize that we want to hallow God's name in every way. And we want to honor Him in our words and in our actions. And as we do, we can anticipate that He will provide us the inference into the kingdom of God that we so desperately seek.