Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Jensen Holt McNair.

Today we're picking up in the middle of numbers 14. Here the Israelites are on the cusp of the promised land, about to

take what God has promised them for so long.

And they refuse to enter and complain to God because they're afraid of the people who live

there. They don't trust God to deliver this

land to them and in return God will not give this generation the privilege of

entering the promised land. Those who left Egypt will die in the wilderness and it is their

children who will inherit the land. Now upon hearing this news the people mourn this loss, this new reality before them.

And then, they try to take matters into their own hands. Verse 40.

Early the next morning they set out for the highest point in the hill country,

saying, now we are ready to go up to the land the Lord promised.

Surely we have sinned.

But Moses said, why are you disobeying the Lord's command?

This will not succeed. Do not go up because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the Lord, he will not be with you, and you will fall by the sword.

Nevertheless, in their presumption they went up toward the highest point in the hill country,

though neither Moses nor the arc of the Lord's Covenant moved from the camp.

Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked

them and beat them down all the way to Horma.

Afraid of dying in the wilderness, regretting their complaints and its consequences,

the people of Israel try to fix the mess they've made. And they end up making an even bigger mess. They go to battle to take the promised land and they die in that battle because they did not go with the

presence of God. They left behind the arc that signified God's presence and Moses

...