Chapter 11

REBELLION: TAKING LESS THAN
GOD’S BEST

IN EVERY HUMAN HEART there is a longing for completeness, a yearning to do, to have, and to be. This desire for fulfilment is inborn, and it shows itself in so many ways: the longing for fulfilment through marriage and family, through education, through wealth, or through art. Whatever country I visit, regardless of race or culture, I see this craving for complete
ness increasing.

Much of the unrest among students and young people is a searching for fulfilment, a rejection of what is seen around them, a reaching out for something finer and more satisfying. We need to know this and to recognize it when we see it.

The sudden rise of the drug subculture is a demonstration of this very thing. It presents a way of escape from the surrounding failure, but it can never satisfy the inner longings of the human heart. It may appease for a while, but the price of appeasement increases as each experience develops. It takes
more and more to produce less and less, and unless the victim realizes this and gets out in time, it becomes the way of no return. Just remember the figures we quoted in chapter 2: 100,000 young people died in the United States from an over dose of drugs in the five years ending in 1969, two and one half times the United States’ Vietnam war deaths for the same period.

They tried to find an experience of completeness in this world through drugs; all they found was the completeness of death.

We need to realize that the desire for completeness is not a sin. The method used may become sinful and evil, but the desire is inherent; it was put there by God. God had a reason for making us this way, as we can see in Colossians 2:9, 10: “For in him [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all
principality and power.”

God made us with a built-in sense of incompleteness. He wants us to reach out for fulfilment, but He has so ordained that we can only be complete in Christ. All the good desires we have for the fulfilment in family, material things, and lovely experiences are excellent. They all play their part, but
they can never completely satisfy. The divorcee who seeks completeness through another partner, the eager businessman who seeks his completeness through money and power, the artist who seeks it in music, writing, or graphic expression: all are doomed to failure.

We are spiritual beings, not just two-legged animals, and our completeness can only come in and through the Holy Spirit.

What we need to realize is that we can only be complete in a complete Christ. We have seen already what it is that God offers: a twofold experience of Christ in our lives.

We can receive Him as the One Who died for us on the cross. By His saving death we receive forgiveness of sin and a home in heaven. We can then go on to receive Him by His saving life, as He indwells us by His Holy Spirit. This latter way is a daily experience of making Christ real in our hearts
through the new behavior pattern.

When we receive all that God gives, then we can go on to grow day by day toward an increasing sense of completeness. Not that we will ever arrive or be perfect in this world. Even Paul said as much in his letter to the Philippians: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after” (3:12)

It is this sense of taking all that God gives, of knowing the fulness of Christ, that produces the quality of life God in tended us to live. If I only take half of what God gives, then I can only enjoy half a Christian experience. If all I take is the wonder and glory of the saving death of Christ, then my sins are forgiven and I have a home in heaven, but I have no capacity to live here and now in the world around me.

The saving death of Christ does not qualify me to live, it qualifies me to die and go to heaven as a forgiven sinner. It is the indwelling saving life of Christ that qualifies me to live now. Jesus said in John 14:19, “Because I live, ye shall live also.’’

The tragedy is that so many Christians have taken less than God’s best. They became involved at the cross with the death of Christ, but they have not gone on to be involved with the life of Christ.

It is this aspect of rebellion that we are considering in this present chapter. The rebellion of taking less than God’s best, of being so dependent at the cross, but of choosing to live our own lives—good, bad, or indifferent—with no daily dependence on the indwelling Christ.

We are going to study this subject of taking less than God’s best by looking at a fascinating story as it unfolds in the Old Testament.

We have the authority of 1 Corinthians 10:1-12 for follow ing this story. The Holy Spirit in this chapter tells us to examine the story of the experiences of the children of Israel as they moved out of Egypt into Canaan. Verses 6 and 11 tell us to note the mistakes that they made, the sins they committed. We are to see in what ways they failed God and came short of His plan for them. The reason for doing this is not just to condemn them, but to see ourselves in their mistakes. Verse 6 says, “Now these things were our examples.” Verses 11 and 12 say, “Now all these things happened unto them
for ensamples [or types of ourselves]: and they are written for our admonition [our warning] . . . Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Notice the special warning in the closing phrase for any who are self-confident and so feel no need of such a challenge.

We can pick up the story in Deuteronomy, chapter 1. This whole book is a remarkable study. It begins with these words: “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness.” The entire book is a postmortem on the failure of Israel to go into Canaan, plus
laws and words of instruction for when they eventually do make it.

Notice who spoke it and wrote it—Moses. Notice where it was compiled—in the wilderness, on “this side Jordan.” This latter phrase means they were near the Jordan but still in the wilderness. It was also written at the close of the forty years’ wandering in the same wilderness. The last chapter was
added by another writer. It includes the details of Moses’ death. Thus, Deuteronomy begins with a post-mortem and ends with a death.

We can pick out from Moses’ account key words and phrases that tell us what really was God’s best.

The first key is found in verses 2 and 3: “(There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.) And it came to pass in the fortieth year.” A simple statement, but what an awful indictment. They could have made the journey to Kadesh-barnea in eleven
days. This place was the point of entry into Canaan. They could have been in Canaan in less than three weeks, but it took them forty years before they finally made it. What a terrible tragedy that was, stuck in a wilderness for forty years when all the time they could have been in Canaan.

Further evidence is found in chapter 6: “And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies and the statutes” (6:20). Here follow instructions for a father in days to come. When his son asked for information about the journey, the father had to tell this son, “We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.. . he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers” (6:21, 23). Notice what God’s plan was, He was going to bring them out of Egypt and straight into Canaan—two weeks later! The wilderness was not part of God’s plan. It was the rebellion of the people that put them there. They condemned themselves to forty years’ wilderness wandering.

This same thought is brought out in chapter 12: “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest and the inheritance, which the LORD your God giveth you” (12:8, 9).

See that description of independence in verse 8: every man doing what is right in his own eyes. Notice it is not doing wrong, but doing right in his own eyes. That is what put them in the wilderness and that is what kept them in the wilderness—going their own way. Notice the tenses in verse
9; God was giving them a rest and an inheritance in Canaan. It had been theirs for forty years, but they had not found the rest and the inheritance. See the implications of this; there is no rest or inheritance in the wilderness.

We were told in 1 Corinthians 10 that the experiences of these people were types of our experience. Let us see how this is so today. The story of the whole plan of redemption from Egypt is a perfect illustration and type of our redemption through Christ. They were in bondage in Egypt; we are in bondage to sin. They were redeemed by the blood of a lamb at the Passover. 1 Corinthians 5:7 says, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”

God’s plan for them, as we have seen, was to bring them out of Egypt and right on into Canaan. The wilderness experience was no part of God’s salvation, although God used it to teach them many lessons.

In like manner, God’s plan for the Christian today is two fold: out of Egypt and into Canaan. Egypt, as we saw, is the type of bondage from which we were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. But what is Canaan? If we go by the hymns we sing, then Canaan is heaven, “On Canaan’s happy shore.” But this is definitely not so in the teaching of the Bible. Canaan was a place where there was much fighting; there is no fighting in heaven. No, Canaan does not represent heaven; it stands for the other half of God’s salvation.

All along we have seen the twofold gift of God in Christ, a complete salvation in a complete Christ: His saving death and His saving life. His saving death is the wonder of His sacrifice at the cross, “Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us.” His saving life is all that He can be to me day by day as I continue to make the new behavior pattern.

God’s plan for the believer is that he should come to know Christ as his Saviour at the cross. Then, being indwelt by the risen victorious Christ in the person of His Holy Spirit, he should go on straight away to know the saving life of Christ. This twofold experience of Christ should follow on
immediately, the one after the other.

But as it happened with the children of Israel long- ago—forty years in a wilderness of their own provision—so it happens with many believers. Of course they come to know Christ at the cross, otherwise they would not be true believers. But then, like the people in Deuteronomy 12:8, 9, they go on
to do whatever is right in their own eyes, and as a result, they have no rest and they enjoy no inheritance. Ephesians 1:11, speaking of Christ, says, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance.” Further on in verse 14, speaking of the Holy Spirit, we read, “Which is the earnest [the present proof] of our inheritance.”

The risen victorious Christ indwelling me is my inheritance here and now. As I learn to rest in Him, trust in Him, commit to Him day by day, then I begin to enjoy my inheritance and I move into the spiritual Canaan of God’s provision. As the days go by, I have battles to fight and enemies to face, but with Christ real in my life, I can begin to experience victory.

If I take only half of God’s glorious gift, if I know only the saving death of Christ, then I have to do my best to live the Christian life. I start doing what is right in my own eyes, facing life in my own strength, and as a result, I condemn myself to my own particular wilderness where there is no
rest and no inheritance.

Some Christians never get out of the wilderness! Oh yes, they are saved, and they will go to heaven when they die, but they never experience that wonderful quality of Christian living where Christ becomes a daily reality. Others spend years in the wilderness until God, in His mercy, shows them
the wonder of the saving life of Christ.

Why is it that some do, and some don’t? A lot of failure is due to ignorance, not to willful disobedience. They never hear the full story of the complete Christ. They only know, “Come to Jesus and get your sins forgiven!” Thank God for the glory of Calvary, but thank God more for the glory of the Christ who rose again and who comes to indwell us by His Holy Spirit.

Some hear it, but somehow it fails to make sense to them. With some people a year or two pass before what they have heard begins to make sense in their experiences. Until the believer appropriates all that God gives, he is guilty of taking less than God’s best, and inasmuch as he takes less than
God’s best then he is walking in independence, which is rebellion.

This story of the final entry into Canaan becomes amazingly interesting when we follow the hopes and desires of one particular group of people. This special story begins in Numbers 32. By the time we reach this chapter, the forty years of wandering are nearly over. All those who came out of Egypt were dead, as God had ordained, except Moses and Joshua and Caleb. This was a new generation facing up to life. They had known nothing but the life in the wilderness, all its deadness, all its limitations.

As they moved on in their journeys out of the real wilderness into the fringe of the wilderness, they found the area becoming more fertile by comparison. They had conquered the people who lived in that area and taken possession of their cattle. They were reaching small towns and seeing houses. All this to them would seem tremendous in comparison with the empty loneliness of the wilderness: real permanent homes, not tents.

So it was there came a desire into the hearts of the children of Reuben and of Gad. Their leaders came to Moses with a proposition. They explained that they had “a very great multitude of cattle.” They also said they had been examining the area into which they were moving, the fringe wilderness, and they felt it was an area very suitable for raising livestock. “Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan.”

They had never seen Canaan. They had no idea how wonderfully fertile their promised land was. They were tired of wandering, and the fringe of the wilderness looked so exciting after the dreary deserts they had seen in other places. They did not want their inheritance. They were quite happy
to settle for less than God’s best. And so they pleaded with Moses, “bring us not over Jordan.”

Moses’ first reaction was one of anger. He assumed that they wanted to drop out of the march into Canaan, “Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?” Instead of twelve tribes fighting the enemy in Canaan, there would only be ten. Moses was thinking of the battles ahead and of how
every soldier would be needed to gain the victory.

Then these eager leaders of Reuben and Gad came up with a brilliant suggestion. Verse sixteen tells:

And they came near unto him, and said, We will build
sheepfolds, here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones;
But we ourselves will go ready armed before the children
of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place: and
our little ones shall dwell in the fenced cities because of the
inhabitants of the land.
We will not return unto our homes, until the children of
Israel have inherited every man his inheritance.
For we will not inherit with them on yonder side Jordan,
or forward; because our inheritance is fallen to us on this
side Jordan eastward (Num 32:16-19).

To Moses, this was a most attractive deal. There were 40,000 armed men aged twenty and over in these two tribes. These could be a tremendous help without women or children to distract them. They could be a fast-moving, mobile attack force, or they could go before and clear the way for the main body following in the rear.

But see what it meant to the women of the two tribes staying in the wilderness. There were no men for leadership or protection. Their children would grow up unprotected from both the physical and the moral dangers all around them. The people still living in that area were pagans who worshipped evil sensuous gods. There were rites and ceremonies full of debauchery all connected with this worship, and their children would be left exposed to all this lustful culture.

No priests stayed to teach the Word of the Lord, for they all went over Jordan; no tabernacle for worship, nothing to hold them true to the Lord, but everything to take them away from the pure ways of Jehovah God.

Teenagers are the same all the world over. Just imagine how these desert wanderers would be attracted to the life and ways of the “big cities,” however small they were.

But such was the burning desire of these men of Reuben and Gad that they were willing to risk their families and their children. They spoke of having an inheritance in the wilderness, but this was never part of the plan of God. Canaan was their glorious inheritance, not this improved wilderness situation.

We are told in 1 Corinthians 10 to be warned by these mistakes. Christians too can do as did Reuben and Gad. The men will sacrifice their children in order to carry out their own special plans. God has a wonderful plan for their life, if only they will move into Canaan and make Christ -real day
by day, yield to Him, and make Him Lord of their lives. Then the whole family will be blessed as they stay together in the things of the Lord. One of the curses of America today is the broken, divided home. This is what happened with these men in our story. They chose to break up their homes
to satisfy their own ambitions which were so much less than God’s best. In all this they were moving out in independence.

Moses was at fault also. It wasn’t often that he made a decision without consulting the Lord, but this time he couldn’t resist the offer of a special advance army. Without stopping to consider or pray about it, he readily accepted this offer and clinched the deal before they had time to change
their minds. Thus we read in verse 33 that Moses gave two kingdoms with their land and cities to the tribes of Gad and Reuben, and also the half-tribe of Manasseh. Notice that half another tribe had joined the group, cashing in on the good deal!

See these words in verse 33: “Moses gave unto them.” We are going to find that phrase coming again and again. God never gave it to them; Moses did. God gave them Canaan forty years before. It was theirs all the time they wasted the years in the wilderness. God never saved us to be failures; He gave us Christ. The miserable wildernesses in which we grind out our daily lives come through our own desires to take less than God’s best.

The following verses tell of a strange situation. They list the towns and cities that were occupied by these two and a half tribes, but verse 38 tells that they changed the names of the places. The places remained the same, with all the heathen potential for sin and sorrow, but the names were changed to sound better when they spoke about them. Sin is sin what-
ever we call it. Using new and pseudoscientific words to describe lust and sin and moral wickedness may change the sound of our conversation, but it doesn’t alter the evil of our behavior.

Our story now moves on to Joshua, chapter 1. Here we read that Moses died and Joshua took over the leadership of the nation. We read in verse 2 God’s first words to Joshua: “Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them.” See the words of the Lord: “thou and all this people.” God wanted twelve tribes in Canaan, not nine and a half. This was the command of the Lord.

Now see how Joshua handled this situation. In verse 11 he commanded the people to prepare to pass over in three days, “to go in to possess the land, which the LORD your God giveth you to possess it.” Finally he spoke to the two and a half tribes: “Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan; but ye shall pass before your brethren armed” (Jos 1:14).

This was not the plan of God. Joshua was simply perpetuating the failure of Moses. Notice the comparison, “the land which the Lord your God giveth you” and “the land which Moses gave you.” The whole thing was so stupid, so foolish; they were condemning their wives and children to a moral destruction, but they thought they knew best. Learn how one leader’s mistake can be perpetuated until it eventually destroys the whole plan. This can happen in any movement, great or small. Because Moses had said it, it had to be so, even though it was in contradiction to the Word of the Lord.

And so the wives and children stayed in the wilderness to fail, and the men went off into Canaan to conquer.

We meet these men again in Joshua, chapter 22. The events recorded here take place five years after the crossing of Jordan. Joshua called together the men of the two and a half tribes and said, “Ye have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you. . . ye have not left your brethren these many days . . . and now the LORD your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as he promised them: there- fore now return ye, and get you unto your tents, and unto the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side Jordan.”

See the implications of this. These men had not been home for over five years. They had left their wives and children in the awful place of temptation with no men to control or guide. Boys had grown up without ever seeing a man of their own race. Every man was in Canaan; the only men in their area were the heathen who dwelt in the land! See again those same words, “the land which Moses gave you.” Joshua said their brethren had found rest in their inheritance, thus God had fulfilled His promise, but there was no rest for these  men, because there was no inheritance in the land which Moses gave them.

We see a very challenging thought in verse 19. Here Joshua is bidding farewell to these men before they make their final departure. He urged them: “If the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over unto the land of the possession of the LORD, wherein the LORD’S tabernacle dwell-
eth, and take possession among us.”

He gave them a second chance. Now they had seen all the beauty and wonder of Canaan; they could compare their possessions in the wilderness with “the land of the possession of the LORD.” If they changed their minds there was still room for them in Canaan, just as God had planned. Notice
that Joshua said, “if the land of your possession be unclean.” It was unclean in every way: there was no tabernacle, no priests, no presence of God.

The question was, would they stay in the wilderness, or would they see their mistake and move into Canaan, to find their rest and their inheritance? The answer was, they stayed in the wilderness. We may well ask, why on earth stay in the wilderness when they had seen God’s best? The answer is found in the words of our Lord in John 3:19: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

The families who had dwelt in those pagan places for five years were rooted there. The teenagers the men had left behind were young adults when they returned. They were strangers to their fathers. Instead of the fathers drawing their children on to Canaan, the children drew their fathers back
to the wilderness. We know this is true because we have one more scripture to read in 1 Chronicles 5:18-26. These verses tell what wonderful fighters came from “the sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh.” They were wonderful fighters because that had been their chosen task. But then verse 25 tells, not of their strength, but of their
weakness: “And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them.”

“And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria and . . . Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh . . . unto this day.” See those words, “unto this day”; they mark the end of those foolish
people. Time and again they had a chance to find rest and inheritance in Canaan, but no, they wanted their own way, less than God’s best. Out of Egypt, yes; into Canaan, no! And so, they lost everything they possessed; and all the time they could have enjoyed everything that God possessed.

And these verses in 1 Corinthians 10 keep challenging us; is this you? Have you made the same mistake? Out of Egypt, yes; into Canaan, no! Have you taken all the blessings of the saving death of Christ: sins forgiven, a home in heaven? Now, have you gone that one stage further; have you taken all the
blessings of the saving life of Christ? Is He real, day by day, as you fight your battles, or have you settled for less than God’s best?