Disastrous Disobedience

Moses was fed up. And he was in no mood to speak to some rock.

In the past, God had directed Moses to go to a rock and strike it with his staff, and then water gushed out. But this time the God didn’t tell him to do that. He told Moses to just speak to the rock, and water would flow out to satisfy the thirst of the people and the livestock.

Moses, however, wanted to hit something. Therefore, he didn’t speak to the rock. He didn’t even whack it once like he had before. No, he said to the people, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10 NKJV). Then he lifted his staff, struck the rock twice, and water came pouring out of it.

There are a number of things that went wrong here, but clearly Moses hadn’t done what the Lord called him to do. As a result, God said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (verse 12 NKJV).

In the same way, we can’t select the things in the Bible that we want to follow and then ignore the rest. Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:14 NKJV).

Someone might say, “Well, I like this part of the Bible and that other part of the Bible, but this one passage of Scripture? I don’t know if I agree with that.”

However, Jesus didn’t say, “You are My friends if you do whatever you find easy or personally agree with.” By the way, who are we to offer an opinion on the Bible? It is absolute truth. The Bible is right, and we need to align our thoughts with what the Scripture teaches.