Numbers
20:5
What are we to make of this? The Israelites are closing in on the final 40 years in which they have wandered in the desert because of their earlier disobedience. Many, if not most, of the disobedient generation had already died. That means most, if not all, of those grumbling was of the next generation. The ones who were to inherit the Promised Land.
While these highly favored young people were whining, the other nations were in great fear of them. These nations heard and remembered the stories of Yahweh’s intervention to rescue, protect, and provide for the Israelites the past 40 years ago! Fearing their God, surrounding people looked to hide; indicting their own God, the generation of promise sat and cried.
Where do you suppose this new generation learned to grumble? Which do you suppose they heard most from their parents and grandparents, complaints about hardships or all the miracles that freed them from pharaoh and sustained them in the wilderness? Here is another staggering factoid to consider. We too, stand on the cusp of a promised land, the New Jerusalem, and must set before us similar questions.
What are we teaching our children and grandchildren about Yahweh, about His Son, Jesus, about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Do our children and grandchildren even know that we love, follow, obey, fear the Lord or do we treat Him as a “homeboy?” What do you suppose the answer would be if your children or grandchildren were asked, “When was the last time your parents (grandparents) read the Bible with you,” “Daily” or “What’s a Bible?” Or if we ask, “When was the last time you heard the name Jesus Christ in your household?” “Daily” or “When they stubbed their toe?” If our children or grandchildren compare our way of life, the things we watch, listen, engage, can they tell the difference between our lifestyle and the lifestyle of the atheists?
Folks, you may receive these questions as rhetorical in nature. You need to know, in all sincerity, God will ask you these questions again…and He will demand an answer!