Obeying The Plan Of God

by Pastor Mark
May 25, 2023

 Understanding the plan of God

God’s plans are wisely and carefully determined, and He specially ordained things according to His will. The Lord has a definite plan for His servants, giving significance and purpose to their lives. He seeks to reveal His plan to His servants, and their part is to discover what His plan is for them and to fulfil it diligently and faithfully.

The challenges of fulfilling God’s plans

  1. God revealed an excellent plan for Moses to understand and fulfil.
  2. Part of the plan was to deliver Israel out of Egypt in response to their cry for help.
  3. Another part was to lead Israel through the wilderness into the promised land.
  4. God also had other plans for Moses as they went through the wilderness.
    1. To teach Israel more about God
    2. To teach Israel how to revere Him
    3. To teach Israel how to glorify Him and more
  5. But Moses did not bear in mind these lessons when he encountered difficult challenges.
  6. Once, there was no water, and the people complained and rose against Moses (Numbers 20:3).
  7. They accused Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to die.
  8. They questioned why he had brought them out of Egypt into an evil place (Numbers 20:4).

The problem of disobedience

  1. God instructed Moses to speak to the rock and water would flow from it (Numbers 20:8).
  2. But he was angry with the people (Numbers 20:10).
    1. He called them “rebels”.
    2. He raised the question, “Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” The use of “we” would indicate that it was Aaron and him bringing out the water rather than God.
  3. He furiously struck the rock twice instead of speaking to the rock (Numbers 20:1).
  4. There were four problems that Moses had (Numbers 20:12).
    1. Unbelief…Moses still lacked the faith to believe in what God had said to him.
    2. Failure to hallow God…Moses did not hallow and revere God’s glorious name before the people but disregarded Him and His words.
    3. Anger…Moses allowed his anger towards the people to get the better of him. Anger was an underlying problem of Moses. When he was in Egypt, he angrily killed an Egyptian (Exodus 2:12).
  5. Disobedience…Moses disobeyed the Lord’s instruction and was severely penalised for it.

Serious consequences

  1. As a consequence, Moses was not to bring Israel into the promised land (Numbers 20:12).
  2. This was God’s chastening of Moses to humble him so that he may realise his wrongdoing.
  3. As the leader, he was to follow the Lord’s Word diligently and not do the contrary.
  4. In this instance, Moses did not set a good example to the people of Israel.
  5. He allowed his personal feelings to affect him and his anger to rear its ugly head.

Disobedience…a severe problem

It would not be till much later in the context of King Saul’s life that more would be revealed on the subject of disobedience. The Prophet Samuel spoke to King Saul about the seriousness of his disobedience, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” (1 Samuel 15:23) Disobedience is to be regarded as evil as iniquity, witchcraft and idolatry. It is a severe and evil problem; let us not give in to it. Let us be serious about following the Lord and His sovereign plan…to be faithful to the end.

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