"These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 2 Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the Lord, and these are their stages according to their starting places. 3 They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover, the people of Israel went out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians, 4 while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them. On their gods also the Lord executed judgments."
Numbers 33:1-4
We should remember why Israel remained so long in the wilderness. It was because of their unwillingness for God's will. This is always what brings spiritual advancement to a standstill. When we have a controversy with God's will, no amount of spiritual activity not even prayer - will get us out of the bit. We sometimes sing: 'Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord?'
The real answer to that question is that it is to be found at the point where we first di- verged from the divine will, the point where we came to a standstill in spiritual life through disobedience. But there is also another consideration of real significance for the spiritual life. In 4, particular emphasis is laid on the mighty acts of God by which Israel was first brought out of Egypt. In this connection one thinks of Exodus 4:31 and Exodus 12:27 this spirit, as the proper response of glad and humble acceptance of God's word of promise, and the consquent mighty deliverance, and the great rejoicing in the Song of Moses in Exodus 15. But lat- er what a tragic falling away from that earlier spirit. If only that had been maintained, how different it all would have been! Paul once said to the Galatian Church, 'Ye did run well: who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?' (Galatians 5:7). This is one of the great tragedies of spiritual life, that so many begin well, but trail off after a few years into a barren and chilling mediocrity of experience. Israel did so. This is what this chapter is intent upon teaching us, as a warning.