Psalms 95:10,11

Forty years long was I grieved with this generation.

Israel’s provocation against God, and the punishment inflicted on them

I. The conduct of israel. Their conduct was marked by ignorance and error. “They have not known My ways,” and they “do err in their hearts.”

1. Ignorance is not always criminal. Some things we cannot know, through the limited nature of out faculties; other things God does not choose for us to know (Deuteronomy 29:29); and others it is not our interest to know. God will never impute blame for unavoidable ignorance.

2. When the most important subjects are presented to us, and the most favourable means offered for knowing them, then ignorance is highly criminal. This was Israel’s case. Does not our conduct too nearly resemble theirs?

3. Error was another of their crimes. Ignorance produces error (Matthew 22:29). Errors are of two sorts,--of judgment, and of heart. Errors of judgment may consist with rectitude of heart; the heart may be right with God, where erroneous opinions warp the judgment. But errors of heart are the most deadly and destructive that exist upon earth; when the affections are perverted and the heart wanders from God. This was Israel’s error (Isaiah 5:20; Isaiah 29:13). And this error in heart gave birth to error in the life (Isaiah 28:7).

II. The effect produced by this conduct. “Forty years long was I grieved with this generation,” etc.

1. God takes cognizance of human conduct. He sees all our actions, whether in the broad daylight, or amidst impenetrable darkness, for the darkness and the light are both alike to Him: and He sees them as they are.

2. The ignorant and erroneous conduct of men is highly offensive to God. His is the grief of a Father whose bowels yearn over the miseries of a child (Jeremiah 31:20; Hosea 11:8).

3. God exercises long patience with His creatures (Acts 13:18).

III. The punishment which this conduct merited. “Unto whom I sware in My wrath,” etc.

1. Whatever forbearance God may exercise towards His creatures, yet a continuance of crime must ultimately produce the infliction of punishment.

2. Israel’s punishment was a deprivation of rest; “They should not enter into My rest.” This threatening primarily referred to the exclusion of Israel from the land of Canaan (Numbers 14:22). This was a land of rest, compared with the toils and perils of the wilderness (Exodus 33:14). But Canaan was typically representative of heaven (Hebrews 4:11). They shall not enter into it--they have no preparation for it, and no promise of possession.

3. The awfully affecting language in which the threatening is expressed leads us to reflect on the terrible doom of its subject; “I sware in My wrath.” Illustrated by Numbers 14:28; Numbers 14:35.

IV. Inferences.

1. Learn what ideas we ought to entertain of sin.

2. That ignorance and error which some deem perfectly innocent expose men to the wrath of God.

3. That sin in the professing people of God is attended with peculiar aggravations.

4. That the doom of impenitent sinners is certain and irreparable. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)