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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
power of God has placed them beyond uncertainty. They may have a
knowledge of the true position and holy calling of Moses and Aaron
if they will accept it. But their neglect to regard the evidences that
God had given them was fatal. They did not realize the importance of
immediate action on their part to seek pardon of God for their grievous
sins.
That night of probation to the Hebrews was not passed by them
in confessing and repenting of their sins, but in devising some way to
resist the evidences which showed them to be the greatest of sinners.
They still cherished their jealous hatred of the men of God’s appoint-
ment and strengthened themselves in their mad course of resisting the
authority of Moses and Aaron. Satan was at hand to pervert the judg-
ment and lead them blindfolded to destruction. Their minds had been
most thoroughly poisoned with disaffection, and they had the matter
fixed beyond a question in their minds that Moses and Aaron were
wicked men, and that they were responsible for the death of Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, who they thought would have been the saviors
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of the Hebrews by bringing in a better order of things, where praise
would take the place of reproof, and peace the place of anxiety and
conflict.
The day before, all Israel had fled in alarm at the cry of the doomed
sinners who went down into the pit; for they said: “Lest the earth
swallow us up also.” “But on the morrow all the congregation of the
children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying,
Ye have killed the people of the Lord.” In their indignation they were
prepared to lay violent hands upon the men of God’s appointment,
who they believed had done a great wrong in killing those who were
good and holy.
But the Lord’s presence is manifested in His glory over the taber-
nacle, and rebellious Israel are arrested in their mad, presumptuous
course. The voice of the Lord from His terrible glory now speaks to
Moses and Aaron in the same words which they were the day before
commanded to address to the congregation of Israel: “Get you up from
among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment.”
Here we find a striking exhibition of the blindness that will compass
human minds that turn from light and evidence. Here we see the
strength of settled rebellion, and how difficult it is to be subdued.
Surely the Hebrews had had the most convincing evidence in the