"The Lord said to Moses, “Go up into this mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. 13 When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was, 14 because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes.” (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.)"
Numbers 27:12-14
We may perhaps think that this judgment on Moses was rather harsh and disproportion- ate to the offence. But we may be sure that God did not deal arbitrarily with His honoured servant. Who shall know whether Moses' sin created something in him that made him incapable of furthering the divine purpose with this people? This is the point incapacitation for future work. If in fact the ongoing work of the Lord requires continual enlargement of capacity for its fulfilment, then we cannot afford to impair that enlargement through sin. A simple illustration of the kind Paul was in the habit of using may help us: the field of athletics. If a worldclass runner damages a muscle, and it heals leaving a weakness, he may still be a very fine athlete, but he may no longer be able to give the superb, classical performance as before. Something will have come in to disqualify him finally from that place where only two or three names are mentioned. So it was with Moses. Sin in the believer is forgiven but it may do permanent damage to his usefulness and disqualify him forever from the kind of purpose God has for him. This is very frightening; and God means it to be frightening, so that we may be- ware, and at all costs battle against sin.