“According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.”

Numbers 14:34 (ESV)

Some choices have inescapable consequences. While God is merciful and does not give us what our deeds deserve, there are limits to His patience and mercy. At times He must chasten the children He loves.

Such was the case for the children of Israel. The ten spies who spread a bad report about the Promised Land would die in the plague before the LORD because of their impertinence. The congregation who accused the LORD of bringing them there to fall by the sword and to kill their children would spend the next thirty-eight years in the wilderness. Those adults who were twenty years and older would never enter the land of milk and honey but would die in the desert.

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” 

Hebrews 12:11 (NIV84)

When God brings out the rod of discipline, the best thing to do is to submit to it. But that was the one thing the children of Israel were unwilling to do. After God declared that they would remain in the wilderness, then they mustered the courage to invade the land of Canaan without the LORD! But their presumptuous plan was doomed from the start.

Yet even in the midst of judgment, God remembers mercy. God judged them for their unbelief in failing to enter Canaan at the right time. Then they were beat up by the Amalekites and Canaanites when they insisted on going in at the wrong time. Nevertheless, God remembered mercy by instructing the children and youth what kind of offerings they should present to the LORD when they entered Canaan thirty-eight years later.

When our son was young, I did not spare the rod for acts of defiance. (Our “rod” was a 5-gallon paint stir stick from Home Depot.) This was initially painful to him, but he recovered physically within a few minutes. However, there were times he made the mistake of trying to stop the “board of education” from contacting the “seat of learning.” In those moments his hand would take the blow and hurt worse than the padded place God prepared for this purpose. I advised him to be brave enough to endure the blow without resistance. It would be better for him.

Likewise, when God brings out the rod, we ought to humbly submit to it. After all, He punishes us far less than we deserve. God may put us in the fire for a time, but this is only to cleanse us from evil so that we are not condemned with the world. In the end, God’s discipline will produce the beautiful fruits of righteousness and peace.

Thanks for reading. I’m glad you’re here. 😊

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