May 26, 2004

Reading: Numbers 14:11-24

"And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word" ( 20)

These wonderful words of God were spoken after the 12 men returned from spying out the land of Canaan. Remember the story—of the 12 only two returned with a positive report trusting that, in spite of all the barriers and opposition that would face them, God would keep His Word and give them the victory. God’s punishment was to disinherit the people whom He called His own, for this was not the first time they had rebelled against Him. The falling carcasses in the wilderness vividly illustrated the divine judgment, but Moses prayed for them that God would pardon their iniquity, and He did so.

How relevant it is for us to remember the pardoning mercy of God to us. We, who by nature, are enemies of God (Rom 8:7), He has pardoned. Is unbelief any different today than it was in the days of Moses? Unbelief in God’s faithfulness still prevails and more so. Today it is intensified and even more heinous because the world denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The greatest gift the Sovereign God could possibly give is denied, rejected, blasphemed and ridiculed. And let us not say that we are any different, for, if it were not for His mercy and grace, we should be under His condemnation. Had God not intervened and drawn His elect to Himself, we would still be His enemy. The apostle John says “He who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son” 1 John 5:10. John the Baptist adds, “He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” John 3:36.

The glorious news, however, is that this same God is still ready to pardon. “But You are God, Ready to pardon, Gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, Abundant in kindness” Neh 9:17. It was, however, because of the prayer of Moses, Israel’s intercessor, that God pardoned them. The pardon we have received from God today is because we also have an Intercessor. His name is Jesus, the very one with whom we are at enmity (Heb 7:25). The only way God is willing to give us His pardon is through the willing sacrifice of Jesus, through His shed blood. God’s wrath against man’s sin and unbelief cannot be appeased, it must be fulfilled—and was when Jesus bore it for us. To be pardoned by Him who knows all and sees all is indeed amazing grace.

The rest of our text says, “But truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD (21). What is the glory of the Lord, but God manifested in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ? The purpose of God was “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ” Eph 1:10. Jesus, our great Intercessor, is the glory of God.

"What sayest thou, my soul, to these things? Art thou now gathered to Christ, to whom, as to the glorious Shiloh, the gathering of the people shall be? Is he that is the Father's glory, thy glory: is the Father's beloved, thy beloved; the Father's chosen, thy chosen? Surely, if so, it must undeniably follow, that God is already glorified in thy view, and in thine heart; the glory of the Lord Jehovah, which is to fill the earth, hath, in the person of his dear Son filled thy soul and affections, and is formed in thine heart, the hope of glory. Oh! for increasing evidences of this love of God, and glory of the Lord, to be shed abroad in my heart, ‘to give me the light and knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ!’” Robert Hawker (1753-1827)