If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Numbers chapter 20. It's such an honor and a privilege to stand before you men. We'll be looking at Numbers 20, 10 through 13. Moses was really a man with no equal. I mean, he was chosen from birth. He was raised in Egypt's palace.

He was protected. He defied Pharaoh, the greatest man on the planet at that time. He worked amazing miracles, turning water to blood and then frogs and gnats and hail and darkness. He parts the Red Sea. He goes up on a mountain that the Israelites couldn't even touch and speaks to Yahweh face to face as a man does with his friend.

When he comes down, his face is shining so brightly that the Israelites are terrified of him. He lives a really remarkable, amazing life. He's the first one to write a part of the Bible. He's a songwriter, too, and not just any song. Talk about writing one of the greatest hits.

In the book of Revelation, John tells us that in heaven, those who conquered the beast were singing what? They were singing Moses' song. Despite all of Moses' greatness, the Bible says that Moses was the humblest man on the planet. He was an exemplary leader, a type of the one to come.

He patiently bore the complaining, wicked Israelites time and time again. Just days after leading them out of Egypt, they were already blaming him. They were telling him, "I'd rather return and be a slave of Pharaoh than a servant of Yahweh." You remember that because of that rebellion, God condemned the Israelites.

They would all die in the wilderness after 40 years of wandering, while another generation could be raised up. Can you imagine Moses, 40 years of complaint after complaint? At least twice, God said he had had enough, and he was going to wipe out the Israelites to start a new nation with Moses.

Moses, as always, displays such humility that when he hears the offer, he falls on his face and intercedes for Israel, saving them from extinction. And then in Numbers 20, where we'll be this afternoon, the 40 years were now up. The last of the first generation has died off. Aaron and Miriam both die in this chapter, and it's now time to enter the promised land.

And what do you suppose happens? Does this second generation of Israelites learn from the mistakes of their fathers? No, they begin to complain, just like their parents. "I'm thirsty. There's no water. I wish I died with my parents," they say. Everything seems as usual. God provides a promise. He will bring forth water from a rock.

And though God had commanded Moses last time to strike the rock, this time he tells Moses to speak to the rock. However, Moses hits it twice. And you know the story, God judges Moses severely, without mercy, without partiality, and tells Moses that he must die and not enter into the promised land because he had rebelled.

The same word used to describe Israel's rebellion. When Moses later on pleads for God to change his mind, God gets angry at him and tells him to be quiet, as recorded in Deuteronomy 3. I'm not sure if you remember the first time you heard that story. I don't. But I do remember the first time I read it to my children.

And it's just shocking. It's really shocking. I mean, really, God? I mean, this is Moses. This is your friend. Have you forgotten all that he's done? And he's going to die just because he hit the rock, something he had did before? I mean, it seems a little bit strict, even mean.

Most of us, though, we wouldn't say it out loud. Most of us feel this way, and that's because most of us do not comprehend the holiness of our God. And I would be also willing to surmise that if you think God should have showed Moses a little bit of partiality and favoritism, the root cause is that you think God should show you a little bit of favoritism as well.

I mean, you're a pastor, right? You endure a lot of troubles, hardship. So this afternoon, I'd like to analyze this passage with you, what happened, why Moses responded the way that he did, and most importantly, why did God respond the way that he did? And I think it's going to provide a really vivid illustration of what we heard about this morning from Pastor MacArthur, that we triumph only through obedience.

So we'll just divide the text into two reasons we triumph only through obedience to Yahweh's precepts. The reasons we triumph only through obedience. First of all, because God's mercy is blind, and second, because God's justice is blind. Blind mercy and blind justice. We're going to study just verses 10 through 13, but why don't we read starting in verse 1 so we can get the context.

Numbers 20, verse 1, thus reads the word of the living God. Then the sons of Israel and the whole congregation came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed at Kadesh, and Miriam died there and was buried there. Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.

The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, "If only we had breathed our last when our brothers breathed their last before Yahweh. Why then have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die here, and why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place?

It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink." Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of Yahweh appeared to them, and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the rod, you and your brother Aaron, assemble the congregation, and speak to the rock before their eyes that it may yield its water.

Thus you shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock, and let the congregation and their beasts drink." So Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, just as he had commanded him, and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them, "Listen now, you rebels.

Shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" Then Moses raised high his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod, and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe me to treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with Yahweh, and he proved himself holy among them.

Let's pray. Father, we come to your word once more, desperately in need of you and your spirit to illumine our minds and help us to see the glories in your law. Help us, Father, to understand this text and to obey this text, for the glory of Christ we ask.

Amen. Again, we'll study just verses 10 through 13, but let's dive a little bit more into the context, starting there in verse 1. Verse 1 speaks of the whole congregation, that's over 2 million people, because they number the soldiers, and there's more than 600,000 soldiers of fighting age, that's not including the Levites.

And it says they came to Kadesh. Now Kadesh is at the very north end of the Sinai Desert, essentially at the border of the Promised Land. And it is the exact same place where they were when Moses sent out the 12 spies when they sinned against Yahweh. It was at Kadesh that the first generation of Israel was sentenced to 40 years of wandering, according to Numbers 13:26.

So they disobeyed, and they've wandered around the desert for 40 years, and now they've come back to Kadesh, in the same spot, the first generation has died off, and now the children are back in the exact same spot as their parents. They are back at the edge of Edom, Numbers 20, 16 says, ready to enter the land.

And we know for sure that the 40 years are up, because both Miriam and Aaron die in this chapter, and Numbers 33, 38 says that Aaron died in the 40th year of their wandering. And notice, the trial that God sends Moses' way is two-fold. The end of verse one, Miriam dies, and then verse two, there was no water.

This is no coincidence. God is sovereign, who is it that gives life and takes away life? Yahweh, and who is it that was leading them with a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night? Also Yahweh, and Yahweh decided to take the life of Miriam at the exact moment he decided to lead the people of Israel back into a place with no water.

This had to have been a significant trial for Moses, Moses and his sister Miriam, right? I mean, he loved her. We don't know of another sister of Moses. This is probably the one who saved his life all those 80 years prior. She was also the one in Numbers 12 that was led astray by the people and was filled with envy of Moses.

Moses was surely filled with all sorts of different emotions, oh, and there's no water. Sort of a big deal when you're dealing with two million people and all of their animals. Has this sort of thing ever happened to you in ministry, that in God's providence he sends a trial your way right at the worst possible moment?

Well, worse from your perspective. We need to trust that God is in control, he knows what he's doing, and he's doing what's best for us in the best moment possible in order to help us to trust more in him. Well, how do the people respond to the trial? We of course know the story, but let's try to put ourselves in the sandals of this original audience.

I think the original reader is supposed to be wondering, right, how is this second generation going to respond to the same trial their fathers faced? Have the desert wanderings fixed their complaining? Is this second generation of Israel going to get to enter into the promised land because they're better than their parents?

Do they deserve to enter? Well, verse three, the people thus contended with Moses, and God of course, they quarreled, they contended, that's the root word we'll see later on, meribah. So this is a genuine insurrection, this is rebellion, and the trial's heating up for Moses, right? I mean, not having water for two million people is one thing, but dealing with an insurrection of two million thirsty people is a trial of a whole different kind.

And notice what they're saying, notice what they're accusing him of, they're at the end of verse three. They say, "Oh, that we would have died with our parents' generation in the desert." In other words, why did you lead us in circles for 40 years just to kill us at the border of the promised land?

We should have died at the beginning of these terrible 40 years with you rather than now. Verse five, "Why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place?" Notice end of verse five, "You promised us pomegranates and figs and grapes." And we laugh 'cause it's almost childish the way that they're responding, but this isn't a joke, and this is not some random list of fruits.

Listen to Numbers 13, 23. This is 40 years earlier, the 12 spies were spying out the land, and to prove that it was a good land, what did they do? They brought back some fruit, says, "They came to the Valley of Eskol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two men with some of the pomegranates and the figs," exact same three fruits the Israelites mentioned here in Numbers 20.

So they're saying, "Moses, you tricked us. There is no promised land. There's no land filled with milk and honey. You lied to us." And that answers our question if this second generation is better than their parents. Did the desert wandering cure their unbelief? Did it cure their complaining? Not even close.

These Israelites are complaining, rebellious unbelievers just like their parents. If they're getting into the promised land, it's gonna be utterly and completely by God's mercy. Well, how does Moses respond? Verse 26, Moses, so humble, so obedient, he falls on his face before God, God so gracious. Verse 7, gives a promise with simple and clear instructions on how to obtain that promise just like always.

Notice verse 8, Moses, "Take the rod, the staff, assemble the people, speak to the rock and you'll get water." Nothing complicated. Moses didn't need to take notes. It's amazing how we complicate God's Word, isn't it? God's Word is simple, it's accessible. Moses says in Deuteronomy 30, "The Word is very near to you." He gives us clear precepts, speak to the rock, preach the Word.

And we say, "Well, in our generation, we kind of need to contextualize it a little bit. No one is gonna listen if we just preach Christ, if we just preach the Word." No, Yahweh's precepts are clear. We need to do just what He says exactly how He says to do it.

So how does Moses respond? Verse 9, he obeys just like always. He took the rod, notice at the end of verse 9, just as Yahweh had commanded him. Verse 10, Moses, "Gather the people also as God had commanded." And that brings us to our first point, blind mercy, blind mercy.

Now once again, I think if we put ourselves into the sandals of the original audience, the stage is set, everything is ready for Moses to pick up his rod, obey God, and save the day once more to work another one of Yahweh's wonders. I mean, it's been 40 years of miracle after miracle after miracle, right?

It's not just the plagues and the Red Sea crossing. Also during the 40 years in the desert, their sandals didn't wear out. They got manna out of thin air, they ate quail, water out of a rock. Miracle after miracle, they certainly expected it by now. So Moses stands before them, but then shockingly, halfway through verse 10, it says that Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them.

And at that word them, it's the first time Moses rebelled in the Pentateuch. God told him to speak to the rock, and he speaks to the people instead. And he compounds the problem, there's various layers of sin here. He says, "Listen now, you rebels," which is true, but God did not command this.

Moses then adds, "Shall we bring forth water from this rock?" And finally, verse 11, he strikes the rock twice. How can Moses do this? Well, I certainly can't judge his heart, but we can imagine, right? Moses had put up with a lot, 40 years of childish complaining, 40 years of constant unbelief.

And this is the new generation, these are the ones that are going to enter into the promised land. Speculating a little bit, Moses seems to be thinking, they just don't get it. They just don't learn. And the current program, the current method of just giving them what they need, when they want it, is just not yielding results.

And if we just give them mercy, as Yahweh is suggesting, and they get the water they're asking for too easily, they're just not going to learn. What they need is a fiery rebuke to get them to understand how terrible their complaining is. And by rebuking them, Moses, in that moment, did not believe God.

He thought he knew a better way, a better way to transform the people. He lacked faith in the sufficiency of God's word. Men, how often do we do this today? How often are we tempted to follow this same man-centered, pragmatic logic? God says, "I'm holy. Call sinners to repentance." And we think, "Hmm, I don't think anyone's going to repent if we say it like that.

No one is going to want to believe in a God like that with a message like that. Let's tell them about His love and about His compassion." This prideful unbelief to think we know a better way than God. And before we dare think that we're above that, if Moses was susceptible to this sin, we certainly are too.

Now we know that Moses' sin is unbelief because we'll get there in a second, but the first thing God says to Moses in verse 12 is, "You did not believe me." So to obey your own way is unbelief. It's to deny God and deny the sufficiency of His word.

Obedience to God's precepts, obedience to God's word is all that matters. And kind of an interesting theological note that we see here too is that God does not have to explain all His reasons why He tells us to do the things He tells us to do in the way that He tells us.

I wonder, did Moses know that the rock that followed them from which they drank was Christ? First Corinthians 10.4. I don't know. I mean, Exodus 17.6 says that Horeb, Jesus, was standing on the rock that Moses struck. Maybe, possibly, but I doubt it. I doubt Moses would have consciously struck the rock twice if he'd known what it represented.

But isn't that just the point? We don't know and we don't need to know and God doesn't need to tell us. We like Moses don't know all the why. We like Job aren't privy to the celestial conversations that precede our pain. Because running the universe is above our pay grade and we wouldn't understand it even if He explained it to us.

So if we have His commands, if we have His precepts, we have enough. Ours is to obey. And if we disobey, even a little bit, it is a serious crime against our holy creator. It may not sound much to you to speak to the people or to hit a rock, but Moses, by screaming out, "Here now you rebels," he makes himself a rebel.

That word rebel is applied to every single person in this text. You can jump down to verse 24, Numbers 20.24. God says to Moses about Aaron, "You," and the you is plural in Hebrew, "You and Aaron rebelled against my command." Everyone in this chapter is a rebel. Everyone in this chapter commits the sin of unbelief.

But now notice the point, you can't miss this. Look at verse 11, "Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice." And then what? So Yahweh did not give them any water. So Yahweh judged them like He did their fathers and sentenced them all to death, because that's what they deserve.

No, it's quite the opposite. Moses sins, he strikes the rock and it says, "And water came out abundantly and the congregation and their beasts drank." It's not a little water, abundant water enough for 2 million people and all their livestock. How unexpected, how merciful is Yahweh, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth.

And this, my friends, is why pragmatic obedience, obedience our own way, is always sinful. Because God's mercy is blind. God does not bless on account of your performance. God's grace is not bound to your obedience. Pragmatism says if it works, God must be blessing it. The pragmatist there in Kadesh would have yelled out, "Moses, hit it again, it's working.

Water's coming out." Completely ignorant as to how angry Yahweh was at their rebellion, and that God gave them mercy, not because they deserved it, not because of their obedience, but solely and exclusively based on His overflowing and gracious faithfulness. He was fulfilling His promise to their forefather. So here's the principle.

God is God. He makes the rules. He says, "I will have mercy on those I will have mercy," period, end of discussion. He doesn't explain to us what His criteria are or how He decides who and when to bless. We see this illustrated in the doctrine of election. Why does God elect one cadaver and not another one?

You think because you're saved and your neighbor's not that you were a better cadaver than your neighbor? That there was something He saw in you? No, the only explanation we get is Ephesians 1, that He blesses us and elected us according to the good pleasure of His will, end of story, end of explanation.

But again, that means that we can never judge an action based on whether God blesses it or not, because God blesses us in spite of our rebellion to magnify the glory of His grace because He's so amazing. So we can only ever judge an action based on its conformity to the Word of God.

It's the only way to judge an action. And this is why obedience to the Word of God is essential. If you say, "Wow, God is really prospering that church because the pastor is preaching fiery political messages," or, "God is really blessing that church because the pastor's so loving," well, then you're missing the point, because God's mercy is blind.

He does not dispense His grace based upon our performance. Grace according to Romans 11 is never earned. If something is earned by definition, it's not grace. Now, to be clear, God will discipline you because of your disobedience. Those things can be related. And certainly, we enjoy God's blessing most when we obey Him.

But just like we cannot draw a one-to-one link between suffering and a particular sin, "Oh, he must have been a terrible sinner or maybe his parents because he was born blind," Jesus in John 9 says, "No," well, in the same way, we cannot draw a one-to-one link between a particular act of obedience and God's blessing, saying, "Every time God blesses someone, it blesses you because of what they've done." No, because God's mercy is blind, He blesses us out of the abundance of His grace.

So again, we must only judge an action based upon how closely it came to obeying God's word. So let us learn this lesson that Moses learned the hard way. It doesn't matter what the command is. The only thing that matters is to obey. It doesn't matter if it sounds like it's going to work or not.

It doesn't matter if it sounds illogical or ludicrous. We need to obey. I mean, just put yourself in Moses' sandals and speak to the rock and water's going to come out. Does that make any human logical sense? No. It sounds absurd, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you prosper doing something or if you get maligned.

The results simply do not matter. It's all irrelevant because God does not dispense His mercy based on our efforts but upon His perfect character and plan. The only thing that matters is obeying His word exactly as it's written. Exactly. You know, Moses got close. Close doesn't count. God demands exact obedience.

God does not say, "Listen, Moses, I mean, I know Israel provoked you. I know they goaded you, and you got pretty close, so I'll go easy on you." No. God expected Moses to obey perfectly. In fact, He expected more of Moses because Moses was His friend. God wanted Moses to obey motivated out of His love for His God.

Right? "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." That's what God wants from all of us. We would love Him and obey Him. We are God's heralds. We have the tremendous privilege of studying God's word for a living. What a mercy. What a grace. He expects us to be abounding in love for Him, obeying Him joyfully.

There's no excuses for disobedience. If God says, "Speak to the rock," we speak. If God says, "Preach the word," we preach. If God says, "Pray without ceasing," we pray. There is no lasting triumph outside of obedience to the truth of God's word. Now, obviously for Israel, water was just a common grace, a mercy, a temporary mercy.

Most of the Israelites were unbelievers, right? It was a temporary mercy for them to receive water. But even for us today as believers, the same principle applies, right? That God gives us His grace and loving kindness not based on our performance, but solely and exclusively based on Christ and His righteousness.

We'll speak more of that at the end, but for now, let's just marvel and worship our God who gives His mercy to rebels like us who don't deserve it. His mercy is blind. He graciously blesses all of us even when we disobey, like the parable of the laborers. They all worked a different amount of hours, but God blesses them blindly with a full wage, not based on their performance.

That leads us to point two, blind justice, blind justice. Notice there in verse 12, "But Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe Me to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.

You did not believe Me.'" It's a strong rebuke. The verb there in Hebrew to believe is to trust in His faithfulness, to trust that God is true and trustworthy. It's the same word we see in Genesis 15, 6, that Abraham believed God and it was credit to Him as righteousness.

The point is that in this moment, Moses, who is a believer, was acting like an unbeliever, someone who did not believe God enough to obey Him. God was illustrating here that unbelief is the sin that keeps us from entering the promised land. You remember in Hebrews 3 when the author of Hebrews is exhorting us to enter into God's rest and not harden our hearts like the Israelites did.

He reminds us of why the Israelites were not able to enter God's rest. He says in Hebrews 3, 19, "We see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief." Unbelief then is that unpardonable sin that if one persists in it will shut heaven's doors to them. Any other sin, God will forgive, but if someone refuses to believe, if they refuse to believe in Christ, there is no other Savior, there is no other hope.

You say, "Well, how do we tell if someone is a believer like Moses who fell into a momentary lapse of unbelief or if they're unbelievers like most of the Israelites destined for judgment?" Well, because like we heard this morning, everyone who is justified is also being sanctified. And Numbers 20 also illustrates this beautifully because it shows that unbelief always manifests itself in disobedience.

Unbelief isn't some ethereal concept that's divided from our physical world. No, God says, "You didn't believe me enough to obey." Faith and unbelief always show their fruits for all to see. Faith works. Unbelief also works. John, the apostle John, fighting this sort of Gnostic dualism says, "Let no one deceive you.

The one who does righteousness is righteous." You say you're justified, well, then you're going to walk justly, you're going to walk in righteousness. So the believer, when he temporarily falls into unbelief and manifests that unbelief in disobedience, will necessarily then confess his sin, repent of his unbelief, and come back to trust out of love for his savior.

Whereas the unbeliever lives in constant unbelief manifested by the fact that they walk in constant darkness and sin. Now notice specifically in verse 12 that God says, "You did not believe me enough to treat me as holy in the sight of Israel." For the holiness of God refers to his separateness.

God is holy. That means that he is different than us. He's full of glory and grandeur and majesty. His perfections are magnificent. He's so distinct. And the primary way that he points out that he's different than us is that he is morally righteous and we are sinners, which is an amazing reality.

If I were God, and it's a good thing I'm not. But if I were God, and I wanted to let Josiah Gromin know how different I was than him, I'd probably start by saying, "I'm eternal, and your life is just a passing breath. I'm omnipresent, and you're limited to this little speck of space in my universe.

I'm self-sufficient. I need nothing and no one to survive, and you can't even live for five minutes without the oxygen I lend to you. I'm omnipotent, and you can barely get out of bed in the morning." Right? The list could go on and on and on, but it's interesting that normally in the Bible, those are not the things God points out that separate him from us, because those differences pale in God's mind in comparison to the biggest difference of all, and that is that Josiah, you disobey.

You sin, and I am pure. And God highlights this aspect of his holiness so much that holiness essentially comes to mean purity. Be holy as I am holy. And we don't think, "Okay, I need to be eternal and self-sufficient." We understand it means that we need to stop sinning and be holy as God is.

But we can't, even though that reality is true, we can't forget the original meaning of the word holiness. And holiness means that God is different than us, he's separate from us, that he's glorious in all his perfections. And I do think here when God says, "Moses, your disobedience did not show off my holiness," that the main point that Moses, the main point is that Moses' disobedience did not display all of God's majesty, all of his separateness.

And here's the point then, God's word, God's precepts perfectly display all of God's holiness, all of his glory, all of his majesty, all of his splendor. And when we tinker with God's word, even in the slightest detail, we necessarily tarnish the glory that he reveals in his word. We tarnish his glory in the eyes of those around us.

Obeying God's word always diminishes the perfection of the revelation of God's glory. When Moses did not obey God's word exactly as it was prescribed, he made God look common. He made God look like us and not an awesome God to be feared. When Moses did this, he was like a foolish child painting with his finger over a Rembrandt thinking that he's making it better.

You can't make God's word better. It's perfect just as it is. God's word cannot be improved, it is sufficient. Well, just a couple of observations here on how Moses did not treat God as holy. First, remember Moses' choice of words. He says, "Here now you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" Now some people say that the only thing sinful here was striking the rock instead of speaking to it because God did say in Numbers 28, "Moses, you shall bring forth water for them." So it's not like they're saying something incorrect.

But we do actually know that Moses' words were sinful here because God sentences Moses and Aaron to death because of their rebellion and only Moses strikes the rock. In fact, we know their words are sinful also because in Psalm 106, 33, it says, "Because Israel provoked Moses, he spoke rashly with his lips." And if we compare the way that Moses is speaking here to the way he speaks in doing other miracles, I think we see a contrast.

For example, in Exodus 14, verse 13, when God is about to part the Red Sea, this is what Moses said to the people of Israel, "Do not fear. Stand by and see the salvation of Yahweh, which He will accomplish for you today." Sounds pretty different than, "Shall we bring forth water from this rock?" There's no "we" in Yahweh's salvation.

There's no "me and Yahweh make a really good team." No, Isaiah 48, 11, "For my own sake, for my own sake I do it. My glory I will not give to another." God shares His glory with no one. And you know, a lot of Christians wrestle with this, that we go through trials and hardships and God takes all the glory.

God doesn't share. God's going to get all the glory and I just have to suffer. But that's not the case for the Christian. The Bible explains to us that the glory of God is completely linked to our eternal good because the more He shines forth His glory and the more we see that worth, we become more like Him.

That's what 2 Corinthians 3, 18 says, that we're transformed into His glory as we behold it. That's the goal for us to reflect His glory as His image bearers. And that's where Moses failed because when he sinned, he was trying to diminish the glory of God whether intentionally or not.

Moses sinned because he did not shine forth God's holiness in that moment. Moses inserted himself. By adding to the Word of God, he was not displaying all of God's holiness. Every time we disobey, we show too much of ourselves and not enough of God's holiness. And God takes this very seriously.

Moses' unbelief made God look common, made Him look human. Moses' anger made Yahweh look like Moses and God says, "No, I'm not like you." Psalm 50, 21, "You thought I was just like you so I will reprove you." Idolatry is fashioning Yahweh after our imagination. Can't do that. God's not like us.

Think about it this way. Who among us, if we were in charge of this situation, who among us would show mercy to complaining Israel and then judge our friend Moses? Would we do that? Would you do that? I think none of us would. But the God revealed here is worthy of the most glory just for who He is.

He shows just how utterly unique He is, completely perfect. He reveals His perfect glory in the story and He is a God whose mercy is blind and whose justice is also blind. And it's best that way. It's best for God's justice to be blind. Hold on to that thought.

We're going to come back to it in a few minutes. But I want to just finish up the text here in verse 13. It says, "Those were the waters of Meribah because the sons of Israel contended with Yahweh and He proved Himself holy among them." Moses did not show God's holiness to the people.

So God judges Moses and shows Himself to be even more clearly anything but common. He tells His friend, "You shall not bring the people into the land." I mean, Moses rebels one time in this whole book and God judges Him blindly, severely, without partiality. That's very unhuman-like, very different than us.

None of us would judge like this. The verb there in Hebrew is "reflexive." He proved Himself holy. And that's kind of the summary of the whole passage. They did not display God's holiness, so God does it Himself in spite of them. Moses refused to show God's holiness by showing mercy to complaining Israel.

So God does it anyway, right? Because our disobedience is not going to thwart God's plan. Moses' disobedience does not mean that God's going to get less glory, not on your life. When Moses did not show God's holiness, God proved just how holy He truly is by showing mercy to Israel and judging His friend Moses.

That makes God very different than us. We judge everything based on favoritism. God judges us without consideration of who we are, and that's seen so clearly here with Moses. I mean, Moses was God's friend. Moses was as an important of a man as there could be in God's plan, as dear as a man as could be in God's heart.

Remember how God speaks of Moses in Numbers 12? Miriam and Aaron grumble against Him, and God gets angry and He says, "Hear now my words. Is there a prophet among you? I, Yahweh, shall make myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream.

Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my household. With him I speak mouth to mouth, indeed clearly and not in riddles. And he beholds the form of Yahweh. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?" So the anger of Yahweh burned against them.

God loved Moses so much that He got angry when someone spoke against Him. Right? Numerous times God defends Moses. I mean, He eats up Corp and His rebellion with the earth. He gives Miriam leprosy. But then when Moses himself sins, Moses receives the same blind justice as everyone else.

Sin is sin, and God is just, holy, and jealous for His glory, and this is the God we worship, an absolutely impartial judge. And remember, if God judged His friend Moses impartially, we should certainly expect the same. In fact, as James 3 says, we who are teachers will receive a greater judgment.

That's compounded upon the fact that Hebrews 10, 29 says that we will face an even greater punishment in the new covenant if we reject Christ after beholding the glory of the cross. God says to the one who tramples His son, "Leave him to Me. Vengeance is Mine. I will repay." It's a horrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So to whom much is given, much will be required. And as pastors, this ought to instill great fear in us, to obey God in everything, to always strive to be doers of the Word, not just preachers of it. Because God's judgment is blind to who we are. We don't get a pass for being pastors, far from it.

Furthermore, it's also blind in considering what we've done, what we can do. I mean, think of Numbers 20, right? If there's anyone who had built up just a little bit of credit with God, it would have been Moses. You know, the way that the world thinks about God and His justice, the idea that if I do a bunch of good things, then I have the opportunity to slip up every now and then, and my good at the end will outweigh my bad because I'm not a murderer.

And we obviously know this is erroneous, and we would never say it, but it does creep into our thinking. And I think Moses thought so too. In fact, later on, like I mentioned, Deuteronomy 3, Moses tries to change God's mind. He says, "And I pleaded with Yahweh at that time, 'Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan.' But Yahweh was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me.

And Yahweh said to me, 'Enough from you. Do not speak to me of this matter again.'" You see, God's justice is blind. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you've done or what you do afterward. The consequences of sin are irrevocable. And I think as pastors, we're particularly vulnerable to this type of error in our thinking because we do so much good.

So we begin to think that God needs us. Or we reason, "I'll sin and then I'll ask forgiveness and the blood of Christ will cleanse me perfectly." Well, first of all, be careful because that's exactly the sort of rationale that has led to the apostasy of many who thought they were washed in Christ's blood when in fact they were not.

But secondly, also, remember that the cross has cleared us from the eternal consequences of our sin but it does not remove the temporal consequences we face on this earth. And Moses also illustrates this fact. Moses will not face eternal condemnation for this rebellion but he certainly lost reward and suffered pain here on earth.

Paul says in Galatians 6, "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap." If you think you can sin and not receive consequences, you think you can mock God and you are wrong. It's impossible. God always wins. That's the point of the last phrase.

Israel contended with Yahweh. Israel tried to fight Yahweh and who do you think is going to win that battle? Israel contended with Yahweh and he proved himself holy among them. They didn't show Yahweh to be holy so he did it himself. Yahweh wanted to announce to the world that he is the great I am, that he can make a promise to Abraham and then fulfill it hundreds of years later.

Yahweh wanted mercy. Moses wanted severity. So what happened? God wins. He was merciful to Israel and severe only with Moses. The people received their water abundantly. God's plan was accomplished. God will not allow anyone to interfere with his plan. Yahweh proved himself holy. In Hebrew, the verb there, kadosh, is in the nifal stem to show his holiness.

The verb occurs less than a dozen times in the entire Bible and just four times in the Torah. So we can trace these uses together. It's the word we see in Exodus 29 where God says that at the burnt altar where blood sacrifices are made, I will meet there with the sons of Israel and it shall be shown as holy by my glory, which is why later in Leviticus 10 when Nadab and Abihu offer strange fire instead of a fire, Yahweh started on that bronze altar, Yahweh kills Nadab and Abihu.

And interestingly, in Leviticus 10 when Moses is having to explain to Aaron because Aaron's having a hard time with the fact that his two sons just died, Moses tells Aaron, "Remember, remember Yahweh told us by those who come near me, I will be shown to be holy and before all the people, I will be glorified." Moses tells Aaron, "Look, God's ministers have an incredible task to show forth God's holiness in the ministry of his truth." This can only be done when the preacher himself obeys that truth and Moses forgot his own warning.

Moses inserted himself. God says, "My ministers will be held to a higher standard to demonstrate my holiness to my people, to get out of the way and let the people see my glory and my holiness." And we like Moses forget this as well. The preacher, not one of us is immune to this.

We finish the sermon and someone compliments the message and we thank them and we forget to say, "Praise the Lord, it's all of him." We forget our place, that our entire ministry is a mercy of God, 2 Corinthians 4, so we must fade away that his holiness might shine.

We forget the words of the greatest man ever born of a woman, "He must increase." And in order for that to happen, "I must, I must decrease." So it doesn't matter if someone slanders your preaching or said you did a terrible job, why do you care about your own glory, your own honor?

You have one job, one job, for the holiness of Christ to shine through your ministry. The thing is like we see here in Numbers 20, at the end of the day, Christ will be glorified with or without you, right? Your disobedience is not going to thwart his plan. Sometimes I envision God's holiness like a freight train speeding down the track and you can hop on and enjoy the ride or be run over, but there's no stopping it.

There's no changing its direction. Yahweh will prove himself to be holy, period. And he will do it through your obedience or if you oppose him by placing your corpse under the feet of the one who sits at his right hand, but he will not be stopped, he's omnipotent. So you can obey and get a front row seat to watch Yahweh work his wonders or you can disobey and miss out because the father loves his son too much to let his perfections be dimmed.

And the son loves his father too much to not shine forth the full glory of his holiness. And the spirit loves the son too much to not transform us perfectly into the exact imprint of the son so that all of God's communicable attributes might be seen in all his creation.

And that is our joy and our crown, that Christ be glorified so that we can be transformed into his image. Well, in conclusion, brothers, I think we've seen like so many doctrines that when understood correctly, the fact that God's mercy and justice are blind should bring us great fear when we disobey and great peace and joy when we believe and obey.

On the one hand, God's blind justice should cause a great fear to overcome you when you disobey in unbelief. Because if you think that you're gonna get to heaven when you die because, well, I'm a pastor, I preach the Bible, I evangelize, I mean, I've helped a lot of people.

I have good theology, I know the truth. I mean, I don't love Christ like I used to, I'm addicted to a couple of sins, but I think God's gonna overlook them given all the other things I've done. Know this, God's justice is completely blind. He hates sin and is a just judge and he will judge every human being without partiality, without favoritism, every single sinner will receive judgment for all eternity in the fires of hell.

You say, but God is also merciful, he'll show me mercy, not like that. God gives justice to everyone. His mercy, he showed to us in sending his son. That's how you receive mercy, in his son. If you don't love the son, it's all justice. Without Christ, there's no mercy.

No one will escape, 'cause every human being is a sinner deserving of hell. We desperately need Christ, Christ is our only hope. And that's one of the greatest lessons this passage demonstrates for us, that even Moses, the great and powerful and amazing Moses, even he cannot bring God's people into the promised land.

So we see this passage is not about Moses, it's not to reveal Moses to us, it's to reveal to us that we need a better Moses. We need a perfect Moses, one who never speaks rashly, one who never stops trusting God. We need our perfect prophet, priest, and king, we need Jesus Christ.

And here's the good news, if you believe in this greater Moses, in Jesus, the eternal son of God, the creator of the world, who became flesh, who came to earth, lived the perfect life that we can't live, who died the death we deserve, and was raised on the third day for our salvation, if you believe in that Christ, you will receive not blind justice, but blind mercy.

And that is the best possible news, because it doesn't matter what you've done. If you're a criminal, dying on a cross, it doesn't matter who you are, if you're the most worthless Gentile on the planet, it doesn't matter if you're an adulterer, or trans, or a slave trader, or a self-righteous pastor.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you would cry out to God to save you from the merits of Christ, God promises to impartially overwhelm you with his mercy, only according to the perfect life of Jesus Christ. You see, we need to see these two truths, that God's justice is blind, and God's mercy is blind.

We need to see it's best this way, because the gospel is guaranteed by these two facts. It's necessary to observe in Numbers 20, as hard as it is to accept, that God has the ability to judge blindly, objectively, and without partiality, because that's the only way the gospel works.

When God took his beloved and perfect Son, and imputed our sins in his account, and then God without partiality to his Son, poured out his wrath upon Christ for my sin. He's a blind judge. Praise his holy name. A judge, any less impartial, could not have done that to his own Son.

In Hebrew, being impartial literally means not seeing someone's face, judging them without knowing who they are. God judged Christ for my disobedience impartially, without ever looking at Christ's face, as it were. I thank the Lord for God's blind justice, as it results in my justification. But point two, we also need to see that God's mercy is blind.

We saw that when God blessed rebellious Israel. And that is the best possible news, that God can look at me, a filthy, wicked sinner, and yet amazingly show me mercy, solely on the basis of Christ's righteousness in my account. If God were a respecter of persons, if he considered who we are, if I had to stand before a lesser judge, a lesser judge would see Christ's imputed righteousness in my account, but then look up and say, "Wait a second, I know that face, Josiah Grauman, right?

I remember you. I remember what you've done. I remember what you said to me that night. I remember how you defiled my temple, how you grieved my spirit. I remember what you did to my son. You're going to burn." Not Yahweh, he is holy, he's different than us, his mercy is blind.

He lavishes his love upon us solely and exclusively, based on the loveliness of his son, blind to the filthiness of our faces. What a judge, who takes rebellious sinners like us, and by his blind justice and mercy declares us righteous, adopts us into his family, changes us in the image of his son, and then brings us home to rejoice over us.

What a wonder, what a motivation to love him and obey him. What a motivation to do what he asks us to do, to show off his holiness in the world, reflecting it in our obedience to the truth. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, because in it we see all your glory shining in the face of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.

We thank you for him. Thank you for the salvation that you have wrought in Christ. We beg you that you would help us to see more of Jesus Christ every day, to see more of his glory, see more of his worth, more of his holiness, and that we would reflect his holiness to the world in the way that we obey you.

Thank you for your spirit that you've left with us, who transforms us and helps us. We love you and we thank you in Christ's name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (audience applauding)