"7 and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 8 “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” 9 And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him.
10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. 12 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” 13 These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy."
Numbers 20:7-13
But there is another emphasis in these verses, and it is necessary to complete the pic- ture. There is absolutely no room for complacency in the knowledge of such a love and grace as God displays here. For He means us to take His grace seriously, on pain of punishment. We may not presume upon it. When we do, we shall suffer for it. This is the lesson which Moses' experience in 12, 13 has to teach us. A judgment was passed upon him because of his sin, and the privilege of leading the people into the Promised Land was withdrawn from this great leader and given to another (cf Psalm 106:32, 33; Deuteronomy 32:48ff; Deuteronomy 3:24ff). What was his sin? He was rash and presumptuous; he smote the rock, when God said to speak to it, transgressing by his unbelief of God's word. Whatever the nature of the transgression and we may suppose it was serious indeed it brought dire consequences upon him. Moses was disobedient in the matter, through irritation, anger and resentment, not to say bitterness, with the people; and disobedience is no less serious in the man of God than in the people of God. And he paid dearly for it. The lesson is clear: grace is never a ground for complacency or presumption. By our carelessness, by our sinful neglect, we can sin away forever some of the privileges of our calling not salvation itself, but our opportunities for service, our possibility for usefulness, our contribution to the ongoing purposes of God. Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned? The answer, ringing from a hundred pages in Scripture is, Never. The fact that this happened to Moses teaches us that there is no height to which we may rise in spiritual life where this will not be a possibility or danger. Be not high- minded, but fear!