Crossing the Line With God

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Introduction:

• Despite the harshness of the law, God dealt with His people Israel with much grace and mercy in their rebellions against Him.

• Moses himself had a special place with God

• Meekest man on earth (Numbers 12:3)

• Faithful in all God’s house (Numbers 12:7)

• Spoke to God mouth to mouth (Numbers 12:8)

• Pattern for the Prophet to come (Deuteronomy 18:18)

• Found grace in the sight of the Lord (Exodus 33:17-23)

• Yet Moses and Aaron crossed a line with God and was not allowed to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 20:12, 23-24; Deuteronomy 1:37; 3:23-26; 4:21-22; 32:48-52).

• The Bible teaches us that we can still cross lines with God (1John 5:16; 1Corinthians 11:29-31).

• Whatever made God so angry with such a man of God as Moses stands as a warning to us. We should guard our lives and hearts so that we do not cross that line.

 

I.                   HE BELIEVED NOT

 

A.      The Privilege of Moses (see notes on Moses above); consider Luke 12:48

 

B.      The Sin of Moses (Numbers 20:12-13)

 

C.      The Sin of Unbelief

 

1.       Blocked entrance into the Promised Land (Hebrews 3:17-19)

2.       Will block entrance into heaven (Hebrews 4:1-3; Revelation 21:8; Acts 16:30-31)

3.       Will block the working of God in your life (Matthew 13:58; Romans 4:18-21)

 

Behold the Lamb of God – On October 7, 1857, Charles H. Spurgeon (at age 22) was asked to preach at a special service on a day of National Humiliation at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in London. Approximately 25,000 people would hear him on this occasion. A few days before the service, Spurgeon went to the Hall to test the acoustics. “Charles wanted to be sure he could adequately fill the farthest recesses of the structure with his resonant voice. He did it by standing in the spot where the pulpit would be placed. Lifting up his beautiful voice, he quoted from the Bible, ‘Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). A workman, busy in one of the galleries, heard him. The words seemed to come from heaven itself. Deeply smitten by the Holy Spirit and convicted of his sins, he laid aside his tools and made his way home. That night he did not rest until he had received Christ as his Saviour.” –from Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers (p.251) by Lewis Drummond.

 

 

II.                HE REBELLED AGAINST GOD’S WORD

 

A.      The Privilege of Moses (Numbers 12:8)

 

B.      The Sin of Moses (Numbers 20:24; 27:12-14)

 

C.      The Sin of Disobedience

 

1.       A sin worthy of death (Joshua 1:18)

2.       The rebellion of Saul (1Samuel 15:10-11, 17-23)

3.       Causing the wrath of God (Colossians 3:5-6)

 

God Refused to Listen to Moses – Does God fit the punishment to the sin? Stephen Charnock in The Existence and Attributes of God: Volume 1 (p.548) thinks He does: “He proportions punishments to the sin, and writes the cause of the judgment in the forehead of the judgment itself. Sodom burned in lust, and was consumed by fire from heaven…So Adonibezek cut off the thumbs and great toes of others, and he is served in the same kind (Judges 1:7). The Babel builders designed an indissoluble union, and God brings upon them an unintelligible confusion. And in Exodus 9:9, the ashes of the furnace where the Israelites burnt the Egyptians bricks, sprinkled toward heaven, brought boils upon the Egyptian bodies, that they might feel in their own, what pain they had caused in the Israelite’s flesh; and find, by the smart of the inflamed scab, what they had made the Israelites endure. The waters of the river Nile are turned into blood, wherein they had stifled the breath of the Israelites’ infants: and at last the prince, and the flower of their nobility, are drowned in the Red Sea. It is part of the wisdom of justice to proportion punishment to the crime, and the degrees of wrath to the degrees of malice in the sin.”

 

 

III.             HE SPOKE UNADVISEDLY

 

A.      The Sin of Moses (Psalm 106:32-33)

 

B.      The Importance of our Words (Matthew 12:36)

 

1.       Words spoken in anger (Ephesians 4:26)

2.       Words spoken in jest (Ephesians 5:4)

 

Resolutions of the Apostles? – “I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a great deal about their acts.” –by Horace Mann (1796-1859).

 

IV.            HE SANCTIFIED NOT GOD

 

A.      The Sin of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:48-51)

 

B.      The Example of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:1-3)

 

C.      The Example of Hophni and Phinehas (1Samuel 2:12-17)

 

D.      The Sanctification of the Son (John 10:36)

 

E.       The Discernment of the Lord’s Body (1Corinthians 11:29-30)

 

Nothing Unworthy – “Boleslaus, one of the kings of Poland, carried about with him the picture of his father; and when he was to do any great work, or set upon any design extraordinary, he would look on the picture, and pray that he might do nothing unworthy of such a father’s name. Thus it is that the Scriptures are the picture of God’s will. Before a man engages in any business whatsoever, let him look there, and read what is to be done, what to be omitted.” –from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations (p.10).

 

Conclusion: Though we live in an age of Grace and though anyone truly saved will never lose their salvation, we are still able to cross lines with God that bring certain judgment on our lives. If you are in danger of crossing the line, seek Him today. Cry out to God and turn your heart and life to Him with all haste.