Numbers 27:13-14
When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was, because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes.”
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When I think about sin, I usually think about the obvious things: stealing, lying, cheating, murder, rebellion against God. But “failing to uphold God as holy in the sight of the people” doesn’t usually make it onto that list. Moses rebelled against God by rebelling against the word of God. God gave him specific instructions about speaking to a rock so that water would come out of it; but instead he struck the rock in anger.
Why was this a big deal? The first time water came from that rock to give water for the people, God told Moses to strike the rock. But he also told Moses that he himself would be standing on that rock (Exodus 17:6). This is to show that God didn’t just make water come out of a rock, but that because he “stood” on that rock, he was the source of the water. This gives validity to what the apostle Paul mentioned when he said that this very rock was Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4).
So the first time Israel drank from the rock, there was a sense of God taking a hit for the people. Even though the people grumbled against Moses and tested God, God in a sense took all that grumbling upon himself and produced something life-giving. There’s an element of sacrifice on God’s part, for his sinful and disrespectful people.
So with this in mind, the second time God tells Moses that water is going to come from the rock, he tells Moses not to strike the rock, but to speak to the rock. I presume that the Lord would once again be standing there on the rock as he was before, expecting Moses to speak, but instead gets hit twice.
Just FYI, if God tells you to open your mouth and talk to him, but instead you hit him, twice, that’s probably a sin.
Moses’ sin was disobedience to God’s command, but also, he treated God with great disrespect. He didn’t give him the due honor or reverence that God deserves, because he is holy.
So today, I’m left in a nervous discontent. I wonder, as someone who gets up on Sundays and teaches people about God, if I truly treat God as holy. Especially in youth ministry, where there’s a desire to be relevant, cool, and humorous, it can be hard to get the message across that God is a holy God; and you don’t treat him as anything but holy.
I’m left challenged by this. What needs to change in how I operate on Sundays? And what needs to change in my daily life as I try to show the world around me that I not only believe in God, but treat him as holy?
