27How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.
28Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you:
29Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward which have murmured against me.
30Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
31But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.
32But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
33And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. (Numbers 14:27-33, King James Version)
“Once saved always saved”?
The Children of Israel were our example, as pointed out by Paul and the writer of Hebrews (whom I think was Paul for this and other reasons). They had accepted the blood of the Passover lamb. They were broke free from the bonds of slavery. They were in that period of time between the Passover and the entrance to the Promised Land.
Surely, you can see the parallels. We too are wandering in our Desert of Sin. I’ve always been struck by that pun. We have not yet entered the Promised Land. Can we too test God to the point that we will not enter it? I think so!
And, what was the sin of the Israelites? They refused to go in! Most think of it as either murmuring or rebellion being the sin that caused them to not enter therein, but remember they had been murmuring and rebelling from the time they left Egypt! No, what they did was the ultimate act of rebellion: They refused to enter the Promised Land. They wanted to go back to Egypt!
That was Israel’s unpardonable sin.
Is there a parallel to the ultimate unpardonable sin? The one that keeps one from the Kingdom?
19For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
20Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. (Hebrews 9:19-20, King James Version)
38Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
39But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:38-39, King James Version)