A Long Obedience in the Wrong Direction Text: Deuteronomy 9:22-24
Introduction: The Anatomy of a Rebellious Heart
We live in an age that has a profound allergy to history. We want to believe that we are the first people to ever feel anything, the first to ever face a particular temptation, the first to ever wrestle with the great questions of life. But this is the pride of chronological snobbery. The Scriptures will not allow us this conceit. God commands us to remember, because in remembering, we see the pattern of our own hearts laid bare. The story of Israel in the wilderness is not just their story; it is our story written in large, unmistakable letters.
Moses, in this great sermon that is the book of Deuteronomy, is preparing a new generation to enter the Promised Land. The old generation, their fathers, had perished in the wilderness. Why? Not because the Anakim were too tall, or the cities too fortified, but because their hearts were too rebellious. Their unbelief was a greater obstacle than any giant. And so Moses takes them on a guided tour of their own recent, sordid history. He is rubbing their noses in their own spiritual filth, not to shame them for shame's sake, but so that they would have no illusions about themselves. He is dismantling any notion that they are entering the land because of their own righteousness. They are not. They are entering because of God's promise to Abraham and because of the wickedness of the Canaanites. But as for them, their own track record is one of consistent, high-handed, stiff-necked rebellion.
This is a hard but necessary lesson. We are always tempted to think that our standing with God is based on our performance. We look at our good days, our quiet times, our acts of service, and we think, "God must be pleased with me." But Moses is here to tell us that the default setting of the human heart, from the day we are born, is rebellion. And if we do not understand the depth of the disease, we will never appreciate the radical nature of the cure. The law, as Paul tells us, is a schoolmaster, and in this passage, Moses is the headmaster, calling the students to attention and reading out their long list of demerits.
He is not just giving a history lesson. He is performing spiritual surgery. He is cutting away the cancer of self-righteousness so that they might learn to live by grace alone, through faith alone. And as we look at this catalogue of failure, we must see ourselves. For the same heart that grumbled at Taberah beats in our chests today.
The Text
"Again at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to wrath. When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, 'Go up and possess the land which I have given you,' then you rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God; you did not believe Him, and you did not listen to His voice. You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day I knew you."
(Deuteronomy 9:22-24 LSB)
A Litany of Provocation (v. 22)
Moses begins by rattling off a series of place names. For us, they are just strange words on a page. For Israel, each one was a scar.
"Again at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to wrath." (Deuteronomy 9:22)
These were not just locations on a map; they were monuments to their sin. Each name was a memorial to a specific act of rebellion. Notice the verb: "you provoked Yahweh to wrath." This is not a passive affair. God's wrath is not arbitrary or capricious. It is a holy and just response to provocation. They poked the bear. They deliberately and repeatedly tested the limits of His patience.
Think of the places. At Taberah, which means "burning," the people complained, and the fire of the Lord burned among them (Numbers 11:1-3). They whined about their circumstances, and God gave them a taste of the fire they were asking for. At Massah, which means "testing," they grumbled for water and put the Lord to the test, saying, "Is Yahweh among us, or not?" (Exodus 17:7). This was not an honest question; it was an insolent demand. It was the creature cross-examining the Creator. And at Kibroth-hattaavah, the "graves of craving," they lusted for meat, rejecting God's provision of manna. God gave them what they wanted, quail in abundance, but sent a plague along with it (Numbers 11:34). They got their desire, and leanness in their souls.
What is the common thread in all these rebellions? It is the sin of discontentment, which is simply unbelief in action. At the root of all grumbling is the accusation that God is not good, that His provision is not sufficient, and that His plan is not wise. They had seen His mighty hand deliver them from Egypt, part the Red Sea, and drown Pharaoh's army. They were fed daily by a miracle from heaven. And yet, their memory was short and their appetites were king. They preferred the memory of Egyptian fish to the present reality of God's miraculous care. This is the logic of addiction and the grammar of rebellion. It exchanges the glory of God for a pot of stew.
The Great Refusal (v. 23)
Moses now moves from the preliminary skirmishes to the main event, the defining moment of their failure.
"When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, 'Go up and possess the land which I have given you,' then you rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God; you did not believe Him, and you did not listen to His voice." (Deuteronomy 9:23 LSB)
Kadesh-barnea was the tipping point. It was the moment of truth. After all the miracles, after all the provision, God brought them to the very border of the Promised Land. The land was a gift. He says, "the land which I have given you." Their part was simply to "go up and possess" what was already theirs by divine grant. The command was clear. The promise was certain.
And what was their response? Three things, and they are a package deal. First, they "rebelled." The command was given, and they refused it. This was open mutiny. Second, they "did not believe Him." Here is the root of the rebellion. Disobedience is never the root problem; it is the ugly fruit of unbelief. They heard the report of the ten faithless spies about the giants and the fortified cities, and they concluded that the giants were bigger than God. They looked at the obstacles with the eyes of the flesh and declared God's promise to be null and void. Unbelief is not a weakness; it is a wicked, God-insulting sin. It calls God a liar.
Third, they "did not listen to His voice." This is the necessary consequence of the first two. Because they did not believe God, they could not obey His command. True listening in Scripture is not just auditory; it is submission. To hear God's voice is to obey it. They heard the sound waves, but they refused the authority behind them. This is the essence of all sin. It is a declaration of autonomy. It is telling God, "Your command is noted, but I will be the final judge of whether or not it is wise, or safe, or convenient for me to obey." At Kadesh, Israel listened to the voice of their fears instead of the voice of their God, and for that, an entire generation was condemned to wander and die in the desert.
The Unbroken Record (v. 24)
Moses concludes this section with a devastating summary judgment. This was not a one-time slip-up. This was their nature.
"You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day I knew you." (Deuteronomy 9:24 LSB)
This is not hyperbole. This is a theological diagnosis. From the very beginning of his dealings with them, from the moment he came to them in Egypt, their history had been one of rebellion. Yes, there were moments of apparent faith, like when they crossed the Red Sea. But the underlying condition of the heart, the deep-seated bent of their nature, was toward rebellion. This is the doctrine of original sin, not as an abstract concept, but as lived experience. As David would later say, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5).
The natural man is not a neutral creature, waiting to decide for or against God. He is born in a state of rebellion. His will is in bondage to sin. He is, by nature, a child of wrath. This is why the law cannot save. The law's purpose is to reveal the sinfulness of sin, to show us the unbroken record of our own rebellion. The law holds up a perfect mirror, and when we look into it, we see the face of a rebel. Moses is forcing Israel to look in that mirror. He is telling them, "This is who you are. Apart from radical grace, this is all you will ever be."
This is a truth that our modern therapeutic culture cannot stomach. We want to believe in the fundamental goodness of man. But the Bible will not let us. It tells us that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately sick. "From the day I knew you." This is God's assessment of us all, apart from Christ.
The Gospel According to Moses
So where is the good news in this relentless catalogue of sin? If this were the only word, it would be a word of despair. If our history is one of unbroken rebellion, what hope is there? The hope is found not in Israel's performance, but in God's promise. The entire context of this passage is that despite their rebellion, God is still bringing them into the land. Why? Because of His covenant faithfulness.
This litany of failure serves to magnify the glory of God's grace. God does not save good people. There are no good people. God saves rebels. He justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). Israel's story is a profound illustration of this truth. They did everything in their power to disqualify themselves from the promise, and yet the promise held firm.
And this points us directly to Christ. Israel failed in the wilderness, but Jesus, the true Israel, went into the wilderness and triumphed over every temptation (Matthew 4:1-11). Israel refused to go up and possess the land, but Jesus went up to Jerusalem, to the cross, to possess a people for Himself. Israel did not believe God's voice, but Jesus' entire life was one of perfect faith and perfect obedience to the Father's voice, even unto death.
When we read of Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah, we should see the sins for which Christ died. Our grumbling, our testing of God, our lustful cravings, our cowardly unbelief, our high-handed rebellion, all of it was laid on Him. He took the wrath we provoked. The fire of God that fell at Taberah fell in its full fury upon the Son at Calvary.
Therefore, we must learn the lesson Moses was teaching. We must abandon all pretense of our own righteousness. We must agree with God's diagnosis of our condition: rebellious from the day He knew us. And then, we must look away from our own sordid history to the perfect history of Jesus Christ. We must cling to the one who is our true Kadesh-barnea, the one who opens the way into the true promised land, not by our works, but by His blood. Our history is one of failure. His is one of perfect faithfulness. And in the gospel, by faith, His history is counted as ours.