God gave the children of Israel a tremendous promise: in just a short while He would wonderfully and supernaturally deliver them out of the clutches of Pharaoh and Egypt. They liked this promise! The right time had come and Moses had the word of the Lord to release God’s will. We all know what happened next. God miraculously intervened by ten plagues to deliver His people from slavery. They left with the wealth of all of Egypt. The Bible tells us that they “spoiled” the Egyptians and that God supernaturally destroyed the entire at my of Egypt in the Red Sea. What a great deliverance! They sang God’s praises and celebrated their freedom.
Now God was ready to unveil the next phase of His plan for His people. He had prepared a “new day” for His people. Moses stood up before the congregation of Israel and told them the “TODAY WORD”. They were to cross over the river Jordan, engage and dispel the enemies of God from there, and take possession of their promised land of Canaan. Everything was going just fine. Then God interrupts their lives with some unexpected challenges and commands
Their response to Moses and to God was the wrong one, and it sealed their future outside of God’s purpose. They basically said to God and to His anointed vessel Moses, “We’ve now got a serious problem here, Mr. Moses. We liked yesterday’s word better than today’s. In fact, we’ve decided to STAY IN YESTERDAY’S PROMISE. We feel that we don’t need this new word and all the hassle it would bring into our lives. So, thank: you, but no thank you on this promised land business.” Hebrews 3: 7 -10 tells us:
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice,Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness,Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’”
The children of Israel “provoked” and “tempted” God by refusing and rebelling against his today word for their lives.
