Num 14:10+11, But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? 
We are at a section in the reading of the Book of Numbers that demands some very careful attention on our part as readers and as the Church of God’s choosing. It is imperative that we consider very earnestly the viewpoint in our hearts and minds with respect to the Children of Israel in their rebellion against God and the manner in which we deliberate upon it. Therefore, once more today, I will be using extensive quotes from Dr. Ronald B. Allen in his writing on the Book of Numbers. Dr. Allan brings forth some very precise and measured realities of understanding that are critical to us and to our consideration of God in all His grace and mercy and His wrath.
We will pick up at the point in our reading where God was talking with Moses about the apostasy of the people and was considering their complete destruction, starting again with Moses as the father of a new nation. Quote, As we read these words, we are aware of several dynamics at work. One is the very real anger of the Lord, expressed here anthropopathically, that is, in the feelings and frustrations that mirror our own ways of reacting to stress. By using language to describe the “feelings” of God in such palpable terms, God is brought near! Even the expressions of His wrath are manifestations of His grace! End quote.
The truth is that God has feelings and frustrations with mankind because He is God and He can be hurt by our actions, our indifference, our carelessness, our distrust, and our unfaithfulness. He is a caring and loving God and we are created in His image with aspects that are reflective of His character of nature and being. The psalmist understood this as we can read together in Ps 78:33-41, if you would please open to it. 
Ps 78:33-41, So He brought their days to an end in futility, And their years in sudden terror. When He killed them, then they sought Him, And returned and searched diligently for God; And they remembered that God was their rock, And the Most High God their Redeemer. But they deceived Him with their mouth, And lied to Him with their tongue. For their heart was not steadfast toward Him, Nor were they faithful in His covenant. But He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; And often He restrained His anger, And did not arouse all His wrath. Thus He remembered that they were but flesh, A wind that passes and does not return. How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert! And again and again they tempted God, And pained the Holy One of Israel. 
It is possible to cause God pain and grief and that is something that must ever be in our hearts and minds with respect to how we look to Him and deal with Him. He is not a god of rock or wood or gold that is unfeeling and without heart or comprehension. He is the Living, Compassionate Lord God Almighty, Holy and Righteous Altogether, and must never be ignored, compromised, disregarded, nor disobeyed. We are to ever consider how our actions, reactions, attitudes, behavior, and even thoughts can cause God to be displeased and pained and grieved and disappointed with us.
Continuing, then, with Dr. Allan, quote: A second dynamic in these words is their effect on Moses. God does not lead His people into temptation, but He does allow them to pass through the tempering fires of stress. He does not do this to break them but for the righteous to have the opportunity to demonstrate what they really believe. The stinging fires lap the dross, but they harden metals that matter. While we hear the words of God, we are anticipating the response of Moses.
A third dynamic in these words is their effect in the lives of those who read them after the fact. The Book of Numbers, as in the case of all Scripture, has a target audience. The primary audience for this book is the second generation, the sons and daughters of these people who behaved so egregiously. The second generation was to learn a lesson that their parents did not learn: God can be provoked only so far. Finally His wrath is kindled. End quote. 
    	The Prophet Jeremiah had to reinforce this with his generation in his warning to the people of Jerusalem from God recorded in Jer 4:14-18. Please turn to is and follow along with me.
Jer 4:14-18, Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, That you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts Lodge within you? For a voice declares from Dan, And proclaims wickedness from Mount Ephraim. "Report it to the nations, now! Proclaim over Jerusalem, 'Besiegers come from a far country, And lift their voices against the cities of Judah. 'Like watchmen of a field they are against her round about, Because she has rebelled against Me,' declares the Lord. "Your ways and your deeds Have brought these things to you. This is your evil. How bitter! How it has touched your heart!" 
    	Returning to Dr. Allan’s insight, quote: A fourth dynamic in these words is their effect in the lives on the more distant readers, including ourselves. Moderns tend to ignore passages that speak of God’s wrath, preferring more comfortable passages, texts with “possibilities.” Surely the Spirit of God measures our own response to these words. The question they pose is inescapable: Do we or do we not really believe in the judgment of God? And if we do believe that finally He will bring judgment on the wicked, those who hold Him in contempt, then what does it matter in our own living?
	My point is this: No one dares to remain unmoved by these words of the expression of the wrath of God. We remember that this wrath was not against Canaanites or Hittites, not against the Egyptians or the Assyrians, but against His own people. There is a measured, almost dispassionate judgment of remote people who pass by the world scene. But when God is forced to rise up in judgment against His own people, we are made to feel what that anger means to Him. End quote. 
	God declared this to His people through the Prophet Zechariah in Zech 8:11-17. In this passage The Lord reminded that later generation as to what had befallen those who disregarded the reality that God’s wrath can not be minimized or ignored. The actions of the people of God will bear the consequences of either their obedience or their rebellion. 
Zech 8:11-17, 'But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,' declares the Lord of hosts. 'For there will be peace for the seed: the vine will yield its fruit, the land will yield its produce, and the heavens will give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. 'And it will come about that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you that you may become a blessing. Do not fear; let your hands be strong.' "For thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Just as I purposed to do harm to you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath,' says the Lord of hosts, 'and I have not relented, so I have again purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not fear! 'These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. 'Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate,' declares the Lord." 
Dr. Allan, in our final, lengthy quote of the morning, reflects on the truth of what the wrath of God details for us today. This is after Moses decried the destruction of the people because the reputation of God would be compromised among all the pagan nations. 
Quote, The second tack that Moses takes is to affirm the splendors of the character of God, particularly His grace. He says, “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed!” (v.17). At this point Moses moves from the reputation of the Lord to the character of the Lord, presenting a composite quotation of His own words of loyal love for and faithful discipline of His people…These are the basic ideas of the Hebrew Bible in its revelation of the character of God. Moderns who have rejected the message of the OT have often done so on the basis of a “bad rap.” They have been taught through popular culture and through misinformed religionists that the “God of the OT” is a god of wrath whereas the God of the NT is all mercy and grace.
But Moses knew God intimately. He knew Him as a consuming fire; he also knew His warm embrace. We tend to focus on the flashes of God’s wrath. Moses reminds us that while the wrath is real, it is long delayed. The most remarkable thing about the wrath of God is how much provocation He tolerates before He finally acts in righteous judgment. I suspect that there are occasions when we all wished that God would “zap” this evil or reach out and destroy that evil. But the fact that He has not is a loving reminder that He may extend His patience with us as well. End quote. 
    	The Apostle Paul reminds us of this truth in his letter to the Church at Rome in Rom 9:14-29. There were those who were decrying how the church was tolerating the Jews while being persecuted by them. The Apostle reminded them and us that we are to count on God to do all that needs to be done with respect to dealing with those who are so difficult and even treacherous. We all were at odds with God and with each other at one point or another until the grace of God was expressed in the restraint of His wrath in our lives.
	Let us read this wonderful truth together. Rom 9:14-29, What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea, "I will call those who were not My people, 'My people,' And her who was not beloved, 'beloved.'" "And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, 'you are not My people,' There they shall be called sons of the living God." And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; for the Lord will execute His word upon the earth, thoroughly and quickly." And just as Isaiah foretold, "Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, We would have become as Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah." 
    	We must always and forever consider Our Lord God Almighty with reverence and honor and thanksgiving for the fact that He has not meted out the wrath that we each deserved. Rather, He showered us with His grace and His patience and His mercy that is beyond all comprehension and comparison? Truly, as Moses knew the character of God and declared it to the people who had been so rebellious and complaining and ungrateful and even despising and contemptuous of the Hand of God upon them, let us never, ever give Him less than the greatest and most supreme adoration and worship and honor and reverent service.
	As the Writer to the Hebrews so encourages us in Heb 3:5-19, we need to pay attention to what the Lord is showing us in His Word today. We must never allow ourselves to become complacent and uncaring toward Our Almighty Lord God, Creator, Redeemer, and Heavenly Father. It should be deeply instilled into the very core of our beings that we need to consider our actions and behaviors and attitudes in order to not cause pain to our loving and merciful God, thus provoking His righteous and holy wrath.
Heb 3:5-19, Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. "Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart; And they did not know My ways'; As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'" Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. So be it!
But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 113:1+2. Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord From this time forth and forever. Amen.